Lewis Hamilton has revealed Mercedes’ progress from having a “terrible” Formula 1 car to seizing race victories has derived from adding downforce in the right areas.
Mercedes came into this season convinced that an overhauled car concept on the W15 had eradicated the recalcitrant characteristics that hampered its predecessor.
However, Mercedes endured a setback as the nascent races saw it struggle with an inconsistent car the team struggled to optimise over various corner speed ranges.
But an aggressive development plan – which comprised a revised front wing in Monaco – has since catapulted Mercedes back into regular contention at the sharp end.
George Russell capitalised on the leaders colliding to end the marque’s drought in Austria, while he then headed a front-row lockout with his team-mate at Silverstone.
But while Russell sustained heartbreak as a water leak issue curtailed his involvement, Hamilton overcame Mercedes’ rivals to end his protracted 945-day wait to win.
Hamilton, who will move to Ferrari in 2025, has explained how ensuring it had downforce in the correct places was instrumental towards Mercedes’ recent turnaround.
When asked to attribute where Mercedes’ car is transformed compared to earlier in the season, Hamilton said: “Everywhere. It’s just better everywhere.
“From Bahrain, for example, the car felt terrible, and the progress that we made in terms of dialling and fine-tuning the car to optimise the aero package.
“This team has never struggled to add performance.
“But where particularly they put that performance has always been, with this generation of car, has been a big question and where we’re getting the downforce from.
“So, yeah, but now they’ve done an amazing job, the engineers back at the factory.”
Mercedes’ continued troubles earlier this season prompted Russell to claim that the team had overcompensated in the attempts to address the W14’s shortcomings.
But while Mercedes’ renewed competitiveness marks a stark contrast to its woes under the current rules, Russell credits “small changes” to unlocking huge potential.
“I think we’ve made some small changes, which have had a big impact,” Russell expanded.
“We knew from the start of this year, the baseline of this car is substantially better than what we’ve had in previous years.
“But we went from having an oversteer car last year, then to an understeer car this year. And now we’ve just dialled it back and found the happy medium.
“When you’ve got the balance in a good place, the tyre temperatures are in the right window, and the lap time just really snowballs positively.
“It hasn’t been a substantial change, but it’s made a massive difference to the lap time.”
