Willy wrote: ↑03 Jul 2023, 16:39
Where does Mercedes go from here? With all the work they have done under Allison's leadership hasn't really moved the competitive needle forward. Barcelona was always a friendly track that continued to be friendly. Canada was expectedly a difficult task, but it still gave a decent result due to Ferrari's starting behind. Team had admitted that Austria should have been a good track, but that wasn't the case. It could be that a combination of factors like, it was a Sprint weekend and Ferrari and McLaren having found form on this circuit that made it more difficult. Russell wasn't there to be seen with the most quiet weekend since he joined the team. All in all, a write off. Silverstone is another Barcelona type friendly track, which might again make things look good. Ferrari also goes well there. AM and the newly upgraded McLaren remains question marks. If all these teams find form once again, Silverstone might turn to be a difficult one too. That rumored Silverstone better be good to differentiate from these teams even if it doesn't bring them any closer to Red Bull.
Starting from an idea to seeing it in the track takes at least a couple of months if you are very lucky that the idea works out-of-to box which is very very rare in engineering. So I would say to judge Allison's leadership, we need to wait a little.
In terms of competitiveness, understanding the regulations and the car is the most important thing to move forward and challenge others (and maybe one day RB), but from this weekend we can see that they don't understand or predict the car, which is a way bigger problem than the effectiveness of the upgrade packages.