18 January 2024 , 15:51
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Mercedes technical director James Allison has admitted his "apprehension" ahead of the new Formula 1 season as his team waits to see whether its new car can push Lewis Hamilton back into title contention.
Hamilton is without a single race win in more than two years, having been given cars that have been unable to match the might of the Red Bull machines. The 39-year-old will hope the W15 will be more competitive in that regard.
It is too early to tell whether that will be the case right now, with no on-track testing having been carried out. So all the team can do is continue to fine-tune their creation using the simulator - and wait to see whether their work bears fruit.
It will be a nervous wait for Allison. "It's impossible at this time of the year to be anything other than apprehensive, coupled with excited, coupled with frightened - those are always the emotions that you feel," he said.
"I would imagine that even in Red Bull, after a year of such good performance, they will not be sleeping easy in their beds either, because no one knows what everyone else will deliver."
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Allison has one major wish for the coming season's car. He added: "What we do have some hope for is that some of the more spiteful characteristics of the rear-end of our car will be a bit more friendly to us and the handling of the car a happier thing. That's all in simulation but, nevertheless, we've got reasonable grounds to believe that we've made some gain there.
"Then, on top of that, you've got all the normal housekeeping type stuff of just making it lighter, making it more 'downforcey' and hopefully getting a bit of uplift from the power unit side with the calibration level tinkering that they're still capable of doing under these current rules.
"Whether it's enough, time will tell, but it's nevertheless going to be interesting because we saw some things we knew were problems, we've hypothesised what the reason for those problems were and we've fixed those reasons. It will be interesting to find out how accurate we've been with that diagnosis."
Allison was speaking after confirmation that he had signed a new long-term contract to remain in his post. That announcement follows news that team principal Toto Wolff has also penned fresh terms, and the Austrian is delighted to have one of his top lieutenants committed to the cause.
He said: "I am thrilled that James has committed his long-term future to the team... [he] is a true friend you can rely on, not only in times of success but in difficult moments too. It has been a pleasure to work with him over the past seven years and I look forward to doing so for many more to come."