The plans of the ‘Big-4’ for the final stretch of 2024: Mercedes

The Texas GP kicks off the first of two back-to-back GP trios that will bring us to the end of this year’s Formula 1 championship on December 8 in Abu Dhabi.

The changes the teams will make to their cars for either the Texas race or one that follows are likely to be the last for this year.

Mercedes F1 is chasing no better than 4th in the constructors’ championship, so the W15 upgrades are intended to provide data for the 2025 W16’s evolution.

At the same time, they aim to help the racing team bring out the speed that the W15 showed at Silverstone and Spa – but has remained hidden in the last three GPs.

After the McLaren MCL38, Red Bull RB20 and FerrariSF-24 in the past three days, let’s now look at the upgrades of the Mercedes W15, closing this cycle of the designs of the so-called “Big-4” Formula 1 teams in the final stretch of the year :

Mercedes W15
The Brackley team is coming off a major upgrade of their car in Belgium – a car that had already been significantly improved with minor successive changes since May, and had taken victory in a race in favorable conditions (ie low temperatures) at Silverstone with Lewis Hamilton.

At the Spa circuit the W15 upgrade proved successful, helping Mercedes F1 to victory. But after the summer, at different tracks, this renewal began to show complications – leading to Mercedes reaching the decision to set aside its new flooring for the Azerbaijan GP in mid-September.

Those are the problems Mercedes will look to address with the extensive upgrade it is preparing for the Texas race – after nearly a month of development back at Brackley.

“We try to bring to each race new components that will improve our performance.” said the team’s director of operations, Andrew Sovlin.

“But right now we’re focused on trying to bring a bigger package (of upgrades) to Austin going into the last six races of the year. In the next few we will also have some small things, but our main priority is the big upgrade we will have in Austin.”

With this upgrade, Mercedes F1 technical director James Allison said he was optimistic the team could celebrate Lewis Hamilton’s 351st GP in Texas with a slightly better result than his disappointing 350th in Singapore.

Alison said that at Brackley they are working on the weaknesses revealed by the Marina Bay match. “We’re trying to figure out how we can make the tires perform better on these kinds of circuits where they overheat, and we’re doing a lot of work on our last big upgrade.”Alison said.

“We’ve got a pretty extensive set of new ‘clothes’ for the car that we’ll be sending to Austin, and hopefully that will give us a great three days of racing there.” added the Briton.

Hamilton, who has faced the challenge of tire thermal management all year this year, also expressed hopes that this major upgrade to the Mercedes W15 will pay off in the US race.

“Yes, I hope our upgrades will work there. I know the team is working very hard to bring them. For the last three years, sometimes (the upgrades) work, sometimes they don’t.

Sometimes the data (from the track) matches the wind tunnel and the CFDs, so hopefully this time we will put them in the car and they will perform. Last year we had an upgrade in Texas and it was great, so I’m praying it will be the same this year.”said the seven-time F1 world champion.