Andrew Shovlin sees the rest of F1 2024 as a “good opportunity” to conduct experiments for the Mercedes W16, with no more “major” upgrades planned for the current W15 car. Mercedes are almost certain to finish fourth in the F1 2024 Constructors’ Championship, with the team trailing third-placed Red Bull by 146 points and 280 ahead of fifth-placed Aston Martin. entering this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

Mercedes W16 ‘experiments’ on the way with ‘major’ F1 2024 upgrades overAppearing on Mercedes’ post-race Debrief show, Shovlin confirmed the team intend to spend the rest of F1 2024 aiming to get a headstart on next year’s W16. He said: “It is certainly a good opportunity for us to do a bit more experimentation in the race weekends, but the key thing for us is making sure we have done the important bits of learning before the 2025 season. “We are not bringing any more major updates to the car.

It might be that we have some test items, some small bits of bodywork that we are looking at but again this would be very much in the context of learning for the future. Lewis Hamilton vs George Russell: Mercedes head-to-head stats for F1 2024👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates“There will be lots of opportunity to do set up work, lots of opportunity to use the two cars to compare different approaches and hopefully over the next few we can just add to the learning that we have already made during this season. ”Mercedes introduced a major upgrade package to the W15 at the recent United States Grand Prix, but an accident for George Russell in FP2 in Mexico forced him to revert to a floor specification from the Miami GP in early May as team-mate Lewis Hamilton ran the updated car.

Asked if the comparison between old and new was useful for Mercedes in Mexico, Shovlin said: “We have some useful data and what we have seen from the update kit to date is it is delivering performance where we expect. “In terms of the loads that we are measuring and the pressures that we are measuring on the aerodynamic surfaces. It all seems fine.

“What we were hoping for that we did not get to the full extent was a clean run with both cars where they were in clear air so we could see how they perform through the race. “Lewis was quick off the line, he got in front of George, but he was struggling with his balance in stint one. We corrected that for stint two but then he had George ahead of him who had his front wing issue, because the flap had failed.

“The two cars spent an awful lot of the race in traffic which does affect your analysis. But we can see from what we have collected that the kit is useful and is performing more or less as expected. “But we are going to continue our learning into Brazil and hopefully get some clean laps and good running with that update kit.

”Read next: Lewis Hamilton’s data confirms clear theory on W15 upgrade package