Help or hinderance? Allison on how Hamilton's feedback is guiding Mercedes

Both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have been vocal about the changes they want to see made to Mercedes’ 2024 car after enduring another challenging and frustrating campaign with the troubled and inconsistent W14. 

After finishing 50 seconds behind Max Verstappen at the Japanese Grand Prix, Hamilton said Mercedes required the “greatest six months of development that we’ve ever had” in order to compete with Red Bull in 2024.

The seven-time world champion cited the rate of development that McLaren have made in 2023 as proof that major performance gains are possible, and stated Mercedes cannot turn a “blind eye” to a Red Bull-style concept, which he labelled as being “the direction”. 

Hamilton visited Mercedes’ designers at the team’s factory after the Suzuka race to check on the progress of the W15 and “see if they are making those changes” he called for. 

Asked if Hamilton’s recent comments have been a help or a hinderance for Mercedes, Allison told the F1 Nation podcast: “It’s both. Both is probably the right thing to say. 

“I think drivers sometimes conflate a problem with knowing what the solution is. Where it’s a massive help is the accurate description of what is difficult about extracting lap time from the car. 

"If they can say ‘here it is letting me down because the front axle is too weak, here it’s letting me down because the rear axle is too weak, here it just feels bizarre and I don’t trust it’, that’s ever so helpful. 

“You can have a million pressure sensors on the car, loads of accelerators up the ying-yang, but ultimately those are a little bit stunted in the ability to tell you truly what the car is doing and the driver is a much better sensor. 

“So if a driver says they are lacking rear downforce - bang, I’ve solved it. Go to the rear downforce shop, get me some rear downforce. 

“That’s the point it becomes slightly less helpful. But at that point you just have accept the car is lacking in a certain thing and it’s our job, as Lewis points out, he doesn’t design the car, it’s our job to respond with the solutions that bring that.

“But I think that he could rightfully say that both he and George have been saying a particular, consistent thing about the car, since the first laps of the 2022 cousin of this one, and the 2023 version inherited that same behaviour and we have been slow to react, slow to fix.”

Allison said Hamilton and Russell have been aligned in feeding back about the W14’s weaknesses throughout the season.

“In our case, we’re dead lucky that we’ve got two drivers who are saying, in slightly different vocabulary, pretty much the same thing,” he continued. 

“That I think answers the question about ‘is one driver pulling you in an unfruitful direction’. If they are both saying it… I mean, to be honest, if just Lewis were, he’s experienced enough to know.

“But also with George saying the same things, that is reassuring that the problem is significant and needs attacking.”  

As a result, Allison said Mercedes are now “pretty hopeful that we’ve got a good handle on what’s been ailing us” and are “pretty confident that we know which direction to head in for the following season.” 

“That leaves an open question though,” he added. “Let’s say we’re dead right and we know where we’re heading. Can we actually walk that path fast enough to overhaul a pretty dominant Red Bull and pop our noses in front? 

“That’s our challenge, more so than being confident of where we’re headed. I think we’re headed in the right place, but the challenge, and that’s what makes this part of the year so breathlessly brilliant, is can we not just walk along that path but fair sprint it for the next several months.”