James Allison believes that Mercedes must find the right balance between continuing the development of its current car and starting to focus its resources on the 2027 season.
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For the technical director of Mercedes, this dilemma concerns all teams, but it becomes particularly tricky when performance gains remain significant during the season.
“Every Formula 1 team is always faced with the dilemma of when to stop working on the current car to invest in the next year’s car, explains Allison. When the development pace remains so high, this decision becomes even more difficult. If you stop too early and your competitors continue to improve by a quarter of a second per month, the situation can become quite uncomfortable in the last third of the season.”
Mercedes still has developments in reserve
The goal is therefore to choose precisely the moment when resources should switch to the next project without compromising Mercedes’ ambitions in 2026: “Our job is to correctly determine this tipping point and to continue to bring enough performance on track to, on average, maintain our advantage in this battle where teams constantly outdo each other.”
Allison remains confident. The results obtained in the wind tunnel and the developments already planned give him reasons to believe that Mercedes still has significant room for improvement.
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“I think we have a good chance of achieving this because I know what the wind tunnel has already produced and what is still waiting to be introduced on track,” he continues. I think there is a significant amount of performance available, and we have already scored a number of points.”
Reliability as a priority
But having effective developments will not be enough. Mercedes will also have to better exploit them and above all avoid technical problems that cost them points during the first half of the championship: “We must ensure that all these developments are introduced smoothly, cleanly, and efficiently,” insists Allison.
The priority will especially be to limit avoidable mistakes: “It is just as important, and probably even more so, to ensure that the second half of the season is not disrupted by reliability issues and injuries that we inflict on ourselves, which were too numerous during the first part of the year. ”
Mercedes therefore intends to continue the development of its car as long as the gains remain significant enough, while gradually preparing for 2027.
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