Mercedes racer George Russell.
Former Mercedes executive director Paddy Lowe said the team face a “very difficult” path back to the front of the field, having taken “wrong turns” in the ground effect era.
Lowe, who led Mercedes’ technical team during the transition to turbo hybrid power in 2014, feels a strong sense of empathy for his former team as they have subsequently lost their dominant position.
Paddy Lowe feeling ‘a lot of sympathy’ for Mercedes
According to Lowe, the team’s undesirable choices have primarily been related to aerodynamics since the 2022 season. George Russell acknowledged in Miami that the team may have gone too far in 2024 while attempting to address their concerns from the previous season.
Lowe, who departed Formula 1 to establish sustainable fuel company Zero Petroleum, acknowledged that achieving the same level of success as Red Bull during this timeframe is an incredibly challenging endeavor due to the current regulations.
He told Motorsport.com: “I have a lot of sympathy and in fairness if you talk to teams that are doing well, if they aren’t too arrogant, and they will say ‘You should count on having good fortune in this sport when you have a good car and don’t assume it is always from your own brilliance’.
Over the years, most of us have learned the message.
“Mercedes has encountered aerodynamic setbacks due to some incorrect decisions. Despite utilizing advanced tools such as wind tunnels and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), these methods still possess inherent flaws acknowledged by all teams.”
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Hence, there is an inherent possibility of venturing down a path that proves ineffective in reality, which necessitates a subsequent recovery. This situation is clearly evident in the case of Mercedes.
Recovering from that is not easily achievable within a short period.
If your team consists of a large number of individuals and you possess all the necessary equipment for testing and evaluating ideas, it is crucial to ensure a daily output of progress. Should your competitors successfully accomplish this, while you encounter delays of several months due to various reasons, it becomes extremely challenging to catch up and surpass their rate of progress. Consequently, you will be left with a considerable disadvantage, requiring significant efforts and time to recover from it.
“When I look at Mercedes, this is the situation they are in.”
Lowe believes that the regulation reset in 2026 will provide Mercedes with the next important opportunity to climb their way back up the order since the cars will not undergo significant changes by 2025.
The introduction of new power unit and chassis regulations will require teams to make significant modifications to their cars, essentially resetting the competition and leveling the playing field to some extent.
Lowe stated that Mercedes is eagerly anticipating the 2026 regulations as they have the potential to disrupt the current state of affairs.
“Regrettably, the current approach primarily revolves around optimizing at a small scale, building upon preexisting or borrowed structures, and then focusing on further optimization. Consequently, it becomes exceedingly challenging to introduce significant advancements within this constrained framework.”
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