Mercedes praises correlation for improved performance
Mercedes Trackside Engineering Chief Andrew Shovlin has credited better correlation between simulation and on-track performance for the improvements the Woking-based outfit has recently made.
Following a difficult start to its season, Mercedes introduced crucial upgrades in Imola which was followed by further developments in Monaco, Montreal and Spielberg.
The W15 suddenly started to deliver a more consistent performance level at different types of circuits and in a wide range of weather conditions.
In Montreal, George Russell took pole position and finished third, while in Barcelona, Lewis Hamilton secured his first podium of 2024. Last Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix saw Russell score Mercedes' first victory for over a year.
Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes' technical track director suggested that better correlation between the Brackley simulator and the track played a key part in recent improvements.
"The car now behaves more normally. I think we now have a good correlation on the simulator.
“So you treat each circuit separately in this regard. We have made developments to the machine, some of them are mechanical, so we do not need to declare them [to the FIA].
"But making a number of developments to the car is a different thing on every track we go on. It's been like this for five or six races now. And you have to somehow fine-tune it so that everything works together.”
“But before we had a car that if you put it out the window, a change of wind direction or track temperature was enough, and all of a sudden it didn't balance, and that's why we were beautiful maybe on a Friday, and then all of a sudden on Saturday we were in trouble.”
“With the changes we've made, the machine is inherently behaving in a little more normal way. Drivers do not complain about oversteer in one area and understeer in another.
"If it's a general problem with a car, it's easy to chase, if there is understeer everywhere, we can fix it. So it's definitely easier to work on it.
"But the key thing is that the correlation on the simulator has improved, and before we had no chance, because five degrees of track temperature or a 30 degree rotation in the wind put you out of balance.
"Unsurprisingly, the simulator had a hard time capturing all of these effects.”
