George Russell has highlighted the return of James Allison as technical director as a crucial moment which has contributed to Mercedes’ turnaround this Formula 1 season.
Allison was credited with playing a vital role on several F1 cars during Mercedes’ previous dominance upon his arrival in 2017. However, he chose to reduce his involvement in 2021 by becoming executive technical director, moving away from design and of Operations, while Mike Elliott was promoted in his place to directly manage the projects and the engineering team at Brackley.
Mercedes suffered a steep decline with the move to ground-effect F1 cars in 2022. Allison was reinstated to his previous role last season and led a technical group that produced a W15 that returned to the leading pack and won multiple races. times.
“I think the return of James Allison’s involvement in the F1 project has been a huge benefit for us.”
“We’ve always had that talent within the team, but just having that clear leadership and clear direction to maximize the talent of the designers and aerodynamicists has been vital.”
“His experience is also huge, so that was a big factor.”
Russell, however, puts the feat into perspective.
“The improvement in performance from us and McLaren was certainly a pleasant surprise but it was perhaps exaggerated a little with Red Bull falling at the same time.”
“We have made progress but in a normal season a driver and a team should not win every race, that is not the norm. We are talking about disaster today for Red Bull, but that is what it should be happen in a normal season in reality, a sharing of victories between several teams.”
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