Mercedes "gamble" rescued Allison from being "a wreck"

Mercedes

Mercedes "gamble" rescued Allison from being "a wreck"

Ian Parkes

Monday 27 April 2020 10:00

James Allison concedes he was "something of a wreck" when he joined Mercedes. Three years on, the Formula 1 team's technical director modestly hopes he has since proven himself "useful".

It was in March 2017 that Allison took up his new role following Paddy Lowe's departure to Williams, and just over six months after quitting Ferrari after the death of his wife Rebecca from meningitis.

Allison acknowledges there was a certain amount of trepidation when he first started, not least as to if he was in the right state of mind, but also whether he was actually required at all given the depth of talent within the Mercedes organisation.

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The team had just won three consecutive constructors' and drivers' titles, and while they were undoubtedly the ones to beat, Allison wondered just how much of an impression he could make.

An additional trio of constructors' and drivers' crowns have since followed, so it is pretty clear that standards have not slipped under Allison's watch.

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Candidly, though, Allison now reflects on that first day and declares that "it was intimidating in a couple of ways".

In a revelatory interview on Mercedes' official Youtube channel, the 52-year-old added: “The first is it was a team that had already dominated the sport for three years running.

"It was a team full of engineers of the highest calibre. It was a very settled team with professionals in every level who absolutely knew their job, and arguably they didn’t need me. They would have gone on to great things without my arrival at all.

"I was conscious as I walked through the door for the first time that I was walking into a team that I hoped I could play a part, but that team would definitely be blisteringly strong whether or not I showed up. That knowledge is a sobering one."

Addressing the second aspect regarding the repercussions of the passing of his wife, Allison has revealed he at least found comfort in his work with Mercedes, that it played a part in the healing process.

"At the time I started in Mercedes, it was only a few months after my wife had died, and I was something of a wreck at the time," assessed Allison.

"I am still grieving today four years on, but then I was crying in the car on my way into work and crying on the way home.

“I hoped that I would be useful at work, that I would find my feet again, that I would be able to carve out some sort of world for myself after Becca died, but it was more in hope than a certainty.

“One of the things I feel particularly grateful to Mercedes for is that in a part of my life where everything was turned completely on its head and where nothing felt normal, the most familiar part of it was my work.

"There the rhythm of the racing season, the pressure to get a car out, the pressure to develop it, the thrill of winning, the challenges the season throws your way, all those things felt familiar and they were about the only part of my life that did.”

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Allison admits that following the death of his wife "most of me wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out again".

One figure that proved a revelation in his return to work was Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, with the team then providing Allison with the kind of environment he required at the time to work through his grief and self-heal.

He is enormously grateful to Wolff for the chance afforded to him, and has not looked back since.

"Toto gave me this opportunity," remarked Allison. "I hoped that as time passed that I would start to feel like I would want to re-engage with the world. By the time I was walking in the factory gates at Brackley I was feeling a little stronger and a little more useful.

“I was able to get a sense that despite the pain of losing Becca that there was still some use in me, and as the weeks rolled by, that turned into months and eventually years, that gamble that Toto took on me, I hope I have repaid by being useful.

“I was very, very fortunate to be granted a place in a team that is extraordinarily warm-hearted and with a group of people who didn’t need me but nevertheless opened their arms to me.

"They made me feel welcome, provided a space for me to work and created an environment where I could be useful, where I could breathe and recover while having the most enviable and brilliant job in the whole pitlane.

"It's a team I feel particularly close to for having provided that for me."