Mercedes chief agrees with Hamilton: 'We did that too slowly'

Hamilton the driver or Hamilton the mechanic

After the Japanese Grand Prix, Hamilton said he knew what the problem with the Mercedes Formula 1 car was, and that he had passed it on to the team. Allison was asked whether such comments from the star driver were helpful or not. Allison remained diplomatic but did hint that he thinks the team knows the most about it and not the drivers. Allison: "I think that drivers sometimes conflate identifying a problem with knowing what the solution is."

The driver knows better than the sensor

He goes on to explain that a driver's input does matter a lot for Formula 1 car tuning and that in many cases they tell you more than the hundreds of sensors in the car: "If they [drivers] can say, here it is letting me down because the front axle is too weak, here it's letting me down because the rear axle is too weak, here it just feels bizarre and I don't trust it, that's ever so helpful because the driver is a much better sensor." There are limits, however, Allison argues. A driver's input has to be specific enough. "If a driver says the car's lacking rear downforce, bang, I've solved it, go to the rear downforce shop, get me some downforce, then that's the point where it becomes slightly less helpful."

A piece of self-criticism from Mercedes

Nevertheless, Allison also understands the seven-time Formula One world champion's statements, indicating that the team may have been too slow to respond to criticism from Hamilton and also from his teammate George Russell: "As Lewis rightly points out, he doesn't design the car, it's our job to respond with the solutions that bring that. But I think that he could rightfully say that both he and George have been saying a particular consistent thing about the car since the first laps of the 2022 cousin of this one and the 2023 version inherited that same behaviour, and we have been slow to react, slow to fix."