SUMMARY
- Mercedes prepares for the grand launch of its 2024 F1 challenger W15
- Toto Wolff comes up with an immensely positive response following latest sim run
The 2024 season of Formula 1 is just around the corner and with a new year, new F1 cars are also expected to be launched, with teams working on their cars over the past year and wanting to showcase their hard work and engineering innovation.
Following this, the German giant also plans to launch its new machine at the start of the year. A recent post on all their social media platforms revealed that they would launch the W15 car on February 14, 2024. The post simply had the aforementioned date and a silhouette of the car itself which can hardly be seen.
14.02.24. Meet the W15 🖤 pic.twitter.com/6XRmjiJC1N
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) January 15, 2024
The new car can bring promises for the team as the drivers with Mercedes are the likes of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, both having the potential and the skill to surpass their competition if given a well-performing machine. Fans’ expectations are extremely high for a major step forward on the end of the team.
Toto Wolff’s remark on the Mercedes W15
The team principal, Toto Wolff said W15 “feels like a car for the first time in two years.” Wolff also quoted, “A different chassis, different aerodynamics, different characteristics, different suspension.” According to the Austrian, the soon-to-be-unveiled W15 is performing great in the virtual simulation.
However, he still believes they must continue marching in the right direction if desire to beat the defending champions Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen.
#F1:Toto Wolff says the W15 will undergo major changes.
“A different chassis, different aerodynamics, different characteristics, different suspension.”
“Everything we can change, we will change.”
“So far, the results in the virtual world [the simulator] are positive, but we…
— F1_MercHub (@F1MercHub) December 11, 2023
According to Wolff, the new W15 is performing great in the virtual simulation but he still believes that they need to be focused in the right direction if they have to beat the defending champions Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen.
Mercedes will be looking to change their design philosophy as the Zeropod concept turned out to be a disaster for them with the W13 and the W14 in 2022 and 2023; they finished second and third respectively in the Formula 1 constructor’s championship which is not bad but not the kind of achievement Mercedes aspires.
The team also saw technical changes as well in 2023 with Mike Elliott leaving the role of Technical Director to become Chief technical officer and then leaving the team altogether while James Allison took the role of Technical Director to drive the team back into competitiveness.