Despite securing four wins in 2024, Mercedes cannot consider the season a success. Several factors hindered the team, including a temperamental W15 and numerous early-season issues that delayed development and postponed crucial updates.
Looking back a year, following Red Bull’s dominant 2023 season, the goal for rival teams was clear: to improve and challenge Milton Keynes’ squad in 2024. In this context, four wins might have been an encouraging step forward for Ferrari, Mercedes, and McLaren. Yet, for a team like Mercedes, 2024 falls short, especially compared to McLaren and Ferrari, who battled for the title until the final race.
The W15 displayed flashes of competitiveness, particularly mid-season, but struggled with consistency for much of the year. Its narrow operating window meant it could perform well in optimal conditions but faltered outside of them. This inconsistency underscored the car’s biggest flaw: it wasn’t inherently slow, but it was highly sensitive.
The development of the W15 mirrored its erratic on-track performance. Like other teams, Mercedes faced challenges with updates that failed to deliver the expected improvements. The team attributed this inconsistency to deeper issues, particularly problems early in the season that hindered progress.
At the start of the championship, Ferrari quickly established itself as a solid second force, with McLaren close behind and poised to unleash further potential. In contrast, Mercedes was immediately hampered by its ongoing nemesis in the ground-effect era: bouncing. While the Bahrain circuit masked some flaws, the issue became glaring in Saudi Arabia, where high-speed corners exacerbated the car’s instability.
From there, Mercedes’ challenges snowballed. The team had to address the bouncing problem while simultaneously understanding the car’s behavior, having made significant concept changes over the winter. This learning process took longer than for other teams, delaying updates. While rivals introduced innovations at successive Grands Prix, Mercedes lagged.
“The main issue was development,” said Andrew Shovlin, a key figure at Mercedes. “Often, we introduced our major upgrade packages a couple of races later than our main competitors.” For instance, the solutions that allowed the W15 to make significant progress only arrived between Monaco and Canada, featuring a redesigned front wing that restored front-end downforce and a new floor.
“If we’d introduced them earlier, the packages would have been smaller,” Andrew Shovlin explained. “The fact is, over the course of the season, we weren’t fast enough in bringing updates to the track. We were competitive at some races, but then other teams brought their packages and regained the advantage.”
Andrew Shovlin also highlighted the poor start to the season: “The car wasn’t well-balanced and didn’t perform on various circuits. Some of these issues were understood and resolved only with the major upgrade between Monaco and Canada. After about seven races, we addressed those problems, and for the rest of the year, we followed a standard development path.”
This delay in development will be a critical issue to avoid in 2025. Establishing a solid baseline will be essential, especially in the final year of this regulatory cycle. If the car fails to meet expectations early in the season, teams may shift their focus to 2026 projects, potentially reducing resources dedicated to the 2025 campaign.
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