Mercedes chief hints F1 title challenge amid 'victim complex' claim

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Mercedes chief hints F1 title challenge amid 'victim complex' claim

James Allison does not want to see a repeat of the 2023 season

Cal Gaunt

Sunday 31 December 2023 16:57

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Mercedes technical director James Allison has urged his team to avoid a "victim complex" as they seek a title-winning comeback in F1's 2024 season.

Despite securing second place in the constructors’ standings in 2023, Mercedes experienced their first winless season in 12 years.

Allison acknowledged scepticism in the media but stressed the team's drive to recapture past success.

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Despite suffering major challenges with the zero-pod concept, Mercedes now aim to challenge Red Bull with the new W15 car in 2024.

George Russell and Lewis Hamilton will seek to recapture Mercedes' best form in 2024

Mercedes secured P2 in the constructors' standings but were a long way away from competing with Red Bull

Allison: Tiring of fake sympathy

Allison warns against team despondency and expresses confidence in Mercedes' ability to reclaim F1's summit, urging unity to counter negative narratives.

“I think the sense that we’re all in this together and that people have written our future for us – ‘the once-great team now in decline’ – all of the negative narrative that can come around with that," Allison told the Performance Podcast.

“As long as, internally, we’re saying: ‘Let them say that.’

“That’s their job, they’ve got to say something. But our job is to show them they’re wrong.

“And imagine how good that’s going to feel, when they’ve all been looking sympathetically at us – or with faux sympathy in our direction.

James Allison says 'faux sympathy' is spurring Mercedes on

“We’ll just suck that up and go: ‘Okay, right, we’re going to work on this and we’re going to come back and we’re going to show them.’

“That is definitely a galvanising thing, as long as it doesn’t spill over into a negative, victim complex and it’s more just the cheerful application of the skill in this place to come out and surprise people.

“We’re not going to go quietly into the night and, actually, this is a place full of extraordinary talent and people who have got absolutely everything they need in their head, their character and the equipment we have here at the factory to be resilient to this and show that we can rebuild and produce a car that is deservedly at the front once more.”