While the Mercedes W15 has been easier to drive for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, it has not produced the anticipated performance improvement.
Mercedes has yet to score higher than fifth, and after two retirements in Australia, it is 29 points behind McLaren in third place.
Despite the two DNFs, the Brackley squad has struggled for performance, and some concerning themes have emerged over the season’s three very different circuits of Bahrain, Jeddah, and Melbourne.
In the heat of Saudi Arabia, it became clear that the W15 struggles for grip in high-speed corners, which is exacerbated by bouncing, and according to technical director Allison, a trend has arisen in which the team is less competitive in warmer circumstances.
The most recent data point was the difference in competitiveness between Australia’s free practice three and qualifying.
In FP3, which took place in the colder morning, Hamilton and Russell were nearly as fast as Red Bull and Ferrari.
However, in afternoon qualifying, when Ferrari and Red Bull both recovered slivers of lap time, Mercedes appeared to plateau, with Russell and Hamilton starting seventh and eleventh, respectively.
“We are starting to see a pattern emerge that most weekends we have a period in the weekend where we are feeling confident about the car, but then in the paying sessions, in qualifying and the race, that slips through our fingers,” Allison went on to say.
“If we were to bring that trend together, the strongest correlation that we can make at the present is that our competitiveness decreases when the track is warm, when the day is at its warmest, and so tyre temperatures rise in tandem with track temperatures.
“That offers us some clues about what we need to do next. There was no setup adjustment between FP3 and qualifying in Melbourne.
Allison stated that it is unclear whether the W15’s limitations can be addressed by setup work or if more severe alterations are required.
“If you’ve identified correctly an accurate assessment of why our competitiveness waxes and wanes, then you can work into the weekend a programme that is dedicated towards trying to move the temperature and the temperature balance front to rear in your favour and using all the conventional set-up tools on the car,” he went on to say.
“You may do that task back here in the plant, as well as the simulation.
“But if you decide that after exhausting the degrees of flexibility accessible to you in set-up terms, you still need to go further, that becomes more difficult.
“That means that there are underlying characteristics in, example, the aerodynamic map you created or the suspension characteristic that are exacerbating that particular aspect.
“In order for it to recover properly, you would need to adjust those underlying qualities. It can be short and filthy, or slightly more sophisticated and complicated.”