The new Mercedes W15 has hit the track for the first time in Silverstone following its public unveiling earlier today.
Drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton both got the opportunity to take the team’s car for the 2024 season out on the track as Mercedes ran a filming day around a partial layout of the Silverstone circuit.The heavily revised new W15 features a series of changes following the team’s decision to abandon the ‘zero sidepods’ concept that it had adopted for the previous two seasons of Formula 1’s ground effect technical regulations.
The running took place on a wet Silverstone, with both Russell and Hamilton fitting full wet tyres for the conditions.
Team principal Toto Wolff said that his team were eager to find out about how their new design for the 2024 will run on track following months of design and development time in the simulator.
“We’re intrigued to see how the car will perform,” Wolff said.
“We hope to have solved some of the inherent problems and we will get our first indications of the progress we’ve made during pre-season testing. From there, we will understand more about the challenge that is ahead of us. There are no crystal balls in this sport. But we will at least know the gap we are aiming to close down. Our ambition is strong and we’re ready to get going.”
Pictures: 2024 Mercedes W15 on track
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Formula 1
- Pictures: Red Bull’s aggressive new sidepod design revealed in detail at test
- Pictures: New views of Mercedes W15 running in Bahrain test
- Pictures: 2024 F1 pre-season testing day one: Bahrain
- Pictures: Haas VF-24 officially presented as testing begins in Bahrain
- Driver line-up confirmed for sole pre-season F1 test
Prab
14th February 2024, 18:54
Ok, please keep that front wing for the entire season Mercedes. Love it!
RH
14th February 2024, 23:04
Extremely clever interpretation, although first done these regulations by Alpine in Vegas last year.
I don’t think it’ll fly given this is against the spirit of the regulations in that it could bring back a Vortex war.
MacLeod (@macleod)
15th February 2024, 8:05
If it generates vortex expect it banned before the first race.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
14th February 2024, 20:38
Another inherent problem that needs solving is they both look the same. More yellow bits on Lewis’s car please.
Jere (@jerejj)
14th February 2024, 21:09
While the numbers on the front can be difficult to distinguish at a glance with only black outlines, the helmets still look different enough to tell them apart.
Renee (@renee)
15th February 2024, 19:17
Could it be that they had only 1 car at the track and just peeled the Russell numbers decal and replaced it with 44 for Hamilton’s run? Thus the rest of the car looking the same.
An Sionnach
14th February 2024, 21:17
A bit mad that they have no idea how the car will perform while they’re developing it. They’ve all been wasting their time and money over the last few years since they have no idea how to simulate any design they make. It’s an embarrassment to the sport.
Boomerang
15th February 2024, 7:42
As it is the case in aviation the holy trinity of development is CFD, wind tunnel, testing. Patrick Head said once that “the aerodynamics of formula 1 car is more complex than the aerodynamics of an airplane due to the interaction with the ground. Here we can talk about a low-flying airplane.” There is to many variables to be 100% sure of the car’s behavior. Consequently, design process throws you into a window of expectations and you adjust within its boundaries. The real problem arises when the expectations go out of the window or even worse, backyard.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
15th February 2024, 15:06
Most of Mercedes problems are self imposed due to them trying to do too much, and completely ignoring common sense.
Its a phenomenon many investors face when their stock is crashing, they keep holding on hoping their stock will stop going down, but it never does and they get ruined. This holding on to hope is not how to be a successful engineer, facing reality is the only way to do that, and Mercedes really were up hopium’s butt the last two years.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
15th February 2024, 16:34
Thanks for the insightful comment !
MichaelN
15th February 2024, 12:55
Looks cool. It’s like a bunch of teams simultaneously figured out that the font view is the one most often seen and built their liveries around that. Nice!