Allison on Mercedes' driving: 'We really need to improve this'

The Mercedes team is currently second in the constructors' classification. At the start of the season, the German factory team had to beat customer team Aston Martin, among others, but the stable seems to be slowly gaining the upper hand. Mercedes engineers James Allison and Mike Elliott analyse where improvements can be made during the summer break.

Allison and Elliot on Mercedes season

On the Mercedes team website, technical men James Allison and Mike Elliott look back positively on the first half of the season. Both saw a disappointing start for the team from the winter tests, but they see that the car has improved throughout the year. Allison outlines where he believes the Mercedes W14's biggest progress has been made: "Simply putting downforce on the car in the medium to high-speed area of the aero map. That downforce is found closer to the ground than we had developed the car in the first instance".

Furthermore, the technical director sees a big area for improvement that Mercedes will work on: "Bread and butter downforce is always a good thing. We are also trying to make the car more reassuring for the drivers when they initially turn in. It feels too reactive. And then when they get to the apex they have the opposite problem, where we want it to bite at the front and it doesn't. It's unstable when you first turn the wheel and then annoyingly dead when they get to the apex. We want it the other way around."

Mercedes arrows fully focused on P2

Mercedes is mostly battling Aston Martin and Ferrari in the battle for second place among constructors. The eight-time constructors' champion had undoubtedly hoped for more this season, but first place seems far out of reach. Elliott comments: "While we want to be winning titles, P2 is still important for everyone in the factories. It's important to show progress from last year and end the year strongly. We want to take the momentum into the winter."