F1 News: Lewis Hamilton’s 1-Year-Old Problem With Mercedes Nears Solution as James Allison Gives Big W15 Update

It’s the start of the 2023 season and you, as a Mercedes fan, are eager to see what progress the Silver Arrows have made over the 2022 Zeropod design. But surprise-surprise, the Zeropods still exist on the W14. And so do some of the problems that plagued the previous car. James Allison has now come out to give a massive update on the W15 as Lewis Hamilton year old woes are about to be fixed. What’s the update?

Just after the first race of 2023, Lewis Hamilton threw a jab at his team by advising how the team didn’t listen to him when he told them about the problems with the W14. Soon Toto Wolff came out to suggest that the Zeropod concept will be scrapped. Yet, many issues with the Spec B W14 remained that Hamilton wasn’t shy to complain about. 

One of these issues was the seating position in the W14 where the driver sat closer to the front of the car compared to competitors and as a result, the Briton didn’t have a great feel of what the rear end was doing. Continuing about the rear end, Hamilton explained how the W14 lacks a lot of downforce, and only once Mercedes is able to generate more downforce will the issues be solved. As a result, Mercedes had to run higher downforce wings on their car, which in turn created drag. 

James Allison has now come out with a massive update regarding the W14 that seems to have taken care of Hamilton’s 2023 woes. In an interview with Autosport, Allison talked about the W15 as he said, “What we do have some hope for is that some of the more spiteful characteristics of the rear end of our car will be a bit more friendly to us, and the handling of the car a happier thing.”

He then added, “On top of that [handling], you’ve got all the normal housekeeping type stuff of just making it lighter, making it more ‘downforcy’ and hopefully getting a bit of uplift from the power unit side, with the calibration level tinkering that they’re still capable of doing under these current rules.” 

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Even Toto Wolff, in a recent interview, advised on the W15’s progress. 

“For the first time in two years”: Toto Wolff on the progress made with W15

Mercedes W13 and W14 didn’t live up to the expectations and were nowhere near the pace of the front runners. However, with James Allison back in the driving seat, the sign looks positive. Toto Wolff recently came out to spill some beans on the progress made by the W15. What came out of the Mercedes CEO’s mouth was nothing short of nectar for the fans. 

Speaking with the Daily Telegraph, Toto Wolff explained how the feedback from Anthony Davidson, the Mercedes simulator driver has been positive. Wolff said, “He [Anthony Davidson] was driving Melbourne [in the sim] and he said: ‘The car feels like a car for the first time in two years’. Obviously, I would love this to correlate to the track but we’ve seen in the last two years that this was not always the case”

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