On Friday morning, Autosport revealed that Allison would return to his previous role with the team and his successor, Mike Elliott, would switch roles to become the team’s chief technical officer.

In several respects, this is entirely new territory for the modern Mercedes team, which finds itself in such dire straits compared to the F1 rulers that it has been deemed necessary to revise its technical staff. Make big changes, and it hasn’t been able to close the gap with rivals with an initial car design refresh program, such as it managed to do in 2021.

Just two weeks ago, team boss Toto Wolff publicly stated that Allison had not returned from a part-time CTO role to work directly on the Mercedes F1 car project. It also involves working with the Copa America team established by Mercedes co-owner INEOS.

At the same time, this reshuffle is very mercedes benz.

Wolf said the change was made at Elliott’s urging. Elliott felt that “with James, we have a gladiator on the battlefield, and the army will go through fire and water with him”. So far, there has been no official press release from Mercedes to indicate a change has been made, and it is understood that will remain the case, mitigating the impact on Elliott and his organization as a whole. But the team wants to break the news on its own terms and Motorsport.com F1 editor Jonathan Noble gave Wolff an exclusive interview to discuss the development.

It’s both an attempt to preserve its much-touted culture of united teams and, apparently, to add fuel to the fire and revive its fortunes in F1.

What is not fully known is the extent to which Elliott’s decision is in response to the internal pressure Mercedes has been building up from the 2022 rule reset and return to running ground-effect cars.

Mercedes-AMG Technical Director Mike Elliott at a press conference

Photography: FIA Pool

There is always the possibility that one of the leading teams arrives towards the end of 2021 and the new machines that end up rolling out lose their place. But while Mercedes fell sharply from the W13’s dolphin attack, Red Bull held on to the lead, roaring out once the RB18 and its downwash method were relieved.

The aerodynamic concept, which takes full advantage of the design of the key suspension and underfloor sections, which Red Bull has also identified, has proven to be the best option for the new era. Aston Martin, the team that took the lead and made a decisive switch to this path, jumped up the rankings.

By implementing a radically different evolution of its “zeropod” and inwash-sidepod cars in early 2023, Mercedes and Ferrari risk falling into their current positions.

This added to the pressure on top of the frustration, and actually ended up doubling it – as the massive concept changes that Mercedes publicly promised in Bahrain, but had been contemplating for some time beforehand, had to be successfully cancelled.

Ferrari has tripled that burden by apparently deciding not to commit to changing the concept until 2024…

Perhaps the most important word in the changes Mercedes has orchestrated with Allison and Elliott is Wolff’s statement that the change was “driven in large part by Mike Elliott.” . “Owned” showed Elliott reacting to the shortcomings of the Mercedes technical team under him, but Wolff’s subsequent reaction was again very mercedes benz.

In the traditional F1 sense, Elliott’s ax isn’t being swung the way Ferrari’s Mattia Binotto and McLaren’s James Key are. Instead, Wolff has kept Elliott with the company, and his role as full-time CTO reflects his value to the organization. Elliott will now address how best to deploy Mercedes’ technical resources from an overall organizational development perspective, while Allison will work directly on how to turn the W14 and W15 into winning packages.

There is also a secondary revelation in Wolff’s words, which shed light on how F1’s other massive rule shakeup – in financial matters – affected Mercedes’ previously super-successful design team.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W14

Photography: Jack Grant / motorsport pictures

That’s why lead designer John Irwin “became a cost cap administrator” after 2021, with “a lot of additional work to follow” after 2021. Now, Owen is refocusing on vehicle design, with his deputy, Giacomo Tortora, as Director of Engineering and assisting the Cost Cap Resources department. It dates back to when Aldo Costa worked with Irving and Allison before leaving Dallara to take over the technical role in 2020.

As Mercedes’ technical division has undergone major changes between 2014 and 2021 into F1 – with other engineers moved into more senior management roles, perhaps most notably the departure of Allison’s predecessor Paddy Lowe Joined Williams as its technical director in 2017. However, the then Silver Arrows went on to win.

Things are very different now for Allison and Wolff. It’s no coincidence that Aston has hired former Red Bull aero chief Dan Fallows and, by the end of 2021, former Mercedes aero chief Eric Blanding as deputy technical directors. So rather than the top of the pyramid being replaced, the key internals, at least metaphorically, are weaker than when Allison was handed over as Mercedes technical director in early 2021.

So this puts the spotlight on this new development. Mercedes is shifting the onus on Allison for the pressure to get back to winning ways, but doing so precisely because of his value to the team.

It’s worth remembering that when Allison stepped down as technical director, he wanted to “walk up to my couch and cheer on the team from the sidelines as a punter” to avoid “being an old embarrassment.”

But instead, Wolff installed a part-time chief technical officer for him and kept him, a decision that appears to be paying off remarkably for now, as Mercedes tries to revive with a proven technical director. its fate. Meanwhile, a major role swap reflects Wolff’s pivotal moment at the helm of Mercedes – its second change of technical director – which ultimately didn’t work out.

But Wolff, via Elliott’s explanation of Allison’s “gladiator” status, reflects that Mercedes sees the appointment of a third technical director as a well-received internal shake-up.

A popular and respected figure among Mercedes employees, Allison’s affable and nuanced personality resonated with Mercedes fans. Allison’s bringing it back to F1 also restored Mercedes’ loss in that regard, as he lost the very good and well-rounded James Wallace to Williams.

Toto Wolff, Mercedes-AMG Team Principal and CEO

Photograph: Sam Bloxham / motorsport pictures

Allison also has a pretty decent F1 record. During his time at Michael Schumacher/Ross Brawn he was head of aerodynamics at Benetton before following the superteam to Ferrari and was an integral part of its recent domination of F1 until 2005.

That year he joined Renault as deputy technical director and won two doubles with Fernando Alonso.

So when Allison rejoined Ferrari in 2013, the Spaniard was delighted – first as chassis technical director, then overall technical director – with his stock and popularity thanks to the cars designed under his tutelage at the time. The Lotus machine rose to win over Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull Romain Grosjean that troubled Sebastian Vettel.

A second stint at Ferrari didn’t work out, with Allison doing far less hands-on design on those red cars and having to grievely deal with the death of his wife shortly before leaving the Ferrari team in 2016 to support his family .

F1 came as a bit of a surprise when initial expectations that he might end up rejoining the company known as Renault again turned out to be his first move to Mercedes in 2017 as technical director.

His work on improving Mercedes’ chassis design, which in the early days of the turbo-hybrid era had been considered generally weak compared to Red Bull’s, has been greatly improved by the team’s engine output, as the powerplant shares stability, he becomes more and more important. Ferrari (controversial) and Honda (surprisingly) eventually overhauled Mercedes in this regard, but it went on to win in an era of ultra-high downforce.

Allison didn’t lead the technical department that produced the W08 during the initial design period early in that era, but by the time the 2020 regulation period was spiritually over, his team had built the W11 with DAS innovations, a package that revived the Mercedes Huge profit advantage in 2014-2016.

James Allison, Technical Director, Mercedes-AMG

Photography: Steve Etherington/ motorsport pictures

That car would certainly become F1 legend, but was very impressive to produce in an era of stable rules and, of course, disappeared from competition due to Ferrari’s “settlement” with the FIA’s engine design in early 2020 also contributed to its development.

But just because Mercedes’ return to the leadership of the technical division has taken it to previously unattained heights of success in F1, and the last of its eight consecutive titles in the constructors’ championship, doesn’t mean it will. Instantly win again.

In fact, Allison had to inspire the now-altered technical structure before leading it from Red Bull’s current overwhelming dominance onto a concept path fully laid out by the Mercedes rival.

But in the era of new F1 design rules, convergence is always possible. It was unexpected that Mercedes’ team culture and the decision surrounding Alisson’s succession as technical director were so tested at the team, producing two bad cars in a row. So the kind of response that is happening today couldn’t have been foreseen until it had to be considered.

But for Mercedes and Wolff, the imminent outcome of this unexpected challenge will be the story of how the modern F1 superteam develops across the board. Mercedes has either peaked or can no longer climb to such a high level, despite steps to correct the decline. Or, its current dire woes are just blips between winning chapters.