James Allison reveals when Mercedes will KNOW if front wing upgrade works

Mercedes

Allison reveals when Mercedes will KNOW if front wing upgrade works

Mercedes technical chief optimistic about the potential of upgrades at next race

Lauren Sneath

Thursday 13 July 2023 16:57

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James Allison has said that Mercedes will know ‘for sure’ how strong their new front wing is at the Hungarian Grand Prix next week.

The team’s technical director was positive about the progress made with upgrades so far this season, but hedged his bets until Budapest when it came to seeing serious improvements.

However, Allison said the cars were looking ‘pretty decently competitive’ at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. In the race, Lewis Hamilton took P3 and George Russell P5.

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In a video for the team’s YouTube channel, Allison was asked in written fan questions whether the front wing performed as he expected.

The technical director responded: “A bit early to tell. The new front wing, of course, is designed to make us go faster that's why we do all our things – but the specific characteristics of this new front wing that we're excited about is it should improve the balance and performance of the car through the slower range of the corners.

“Now, Silverstone is famous for lots of things, but lots and lots of slow corners is not one of them. So what we took as a comfort from Silverstone is that in the slower parts of the track we were looking pretty decently competitive, so that's a tick in the box for this new front wing.”

Progress will be seen in Hungary

Allison added that because Hungary’s track is full of slower corners, the upgrades may be more visible.

He explained: “I guess it will only be when we get to Hungary, which is a track made up almost entirely of slower stuff, that we'll get to know for sure but early signs are promising new front wing.

“It seemed to do what we expected and hopefully it will bring us more at tracks which have a wider range of slow corners.”