梅赛德斯技术总监解释为何其他车队的升级“可怕”
梅赛德斯技术总监詹姆斯·艾利森表示，车队决定持续开发2026年F1赛车至赛季后期，使其与其他车队“不同步”，赛季中升级因此带来大幅性能提升，形成跳跃效应。
为什么梅赛德斯以其“错峰”计划认为其他F1车队的升级“很可怕”
将W17的设计推向极限的决定导致梅赛德斯在2026年F1研发竞赛中落后于其他车队
兰多·诺里斯，迈凯伦；乔治·拉塞尔，梅赛德斯
梅赛德斯技术总监詹姆斯·艾利森表示，车队决定持续较晚地研发其2026年F1赛车，这使其与周围的其他车队处于“错峰”状态，导致赛季中的升级带来巨大性能提升时出现相互超越的效应。
W17 到目前为止一直是全场最出色的赛车，年初在澳大利亚以一、二名完赛开局，并在 F1 新时代的头 11 场比赛中取得了八场胜利。尽管这支车队是稳稳的夺冠热门，但在 2026 年的赛程中，法拉利和迈凯伦等车队仍凭借实力从它手中抢走过胜利。
阿利森在车队的 Nu Silver Arrows Radio Show 播客中表示，与上赛季相比，车队现在每周在风洞中能找到大约六到七倍的单圈时间。这体现了在新规则体系下寻找性能提升与在一套更加成熟、接近生命周期末尾的规则下寻找提升之间的差异。
他还透露，车队选择在后期才敲定 W17 赛车的设计。车队在设计赛车时，通常会设定一个“设计冻结”时间点，届时赛车将按原样进行制造，而进一步的开发成果则会被打包成本赛季后期的升级件。
梅赛德斯选择将这一冻结时间点往后推迟，这压缩了制造时间，但使其能够有效地把赛季初期的升级内容直接纳入首发的赛车中。阿利森表示，如果出现问题，这“几乎没有留任何余地”，但这让车队能够利用持续的开发曲线所带来的优势。
艾利森（Allison）说：“从空气动力学角度来看，风洞中每一周的提升速度、我们找到的圈速提升量——这就是提升速度——大约是去年的六到七倍。”
大约每两个月就有半秒的提升，差不多是这样，所以这真的、真的非常陡峭。我们竭尽全力在年初推出了一辆实力强劲的赛车。
谢天谢地，那次努力还算不错。但我们的研发策略之一是，我们在空气动力学和车身方面内部做出决定，把赛车定案的时间推迟得比以往任何一次都晚好几个星期。而且我们要执行一个完全没有留任何余地的计划。
刘易斯·汉密尔顿（汉密尔顿），法拉利；乔治·拉塞尔（拉塞尔），梅赛德斯
"由于那个计划，我们获得了尽可能多的——那个非常、非常陡峭的研发曲线——我认为我们在第一辆车的第一场比赛中，已经把人类可能达到的研发曲线尽可能多地塞了进去。为此我们倾尽了所有。其他车队抵达时也许没有像我们这样拖到最后一刻、如此接近极限。因此，他们的赛车升级来得更早。"
Allison表示，虽然这在年初为梅赛德斯带来了优势，但车队却没有任何储备。这使得车队在推出升级方面比对手慢了"一两场比赛"，因为它不得不补充储备进一步的改进方案。
他解释说，半秒的优势可能在其他车队带来升级时被完全抹平，这使得梅赛德斯在等待自身研发、以期恢复那一优势期间可能处于脆弱状态。
这解释了各车队之间性能的此消彼长；法拉利凭借一套相当可观的升级包在巴塞罗那找到了速度，而迈凯伦在匈牙利的新底板则为它铺平了通往本赛季首场胜利的道路。
“他们提前及时修好了赛车，然后又开发了第一个升级件，以便在赛季初更早到位。所以我们到来时，你知道的，满身性能，但所有性能都已经用掉了，”Allison继续说道。
“我们一直在消耗油箱里的储备来提供更多性能，而现在我们有点不同步了。由于过早到来，我们的开发计划目前在更新节奏上比其他车队慢了一两场比赛。
“从我们看到的圈速来看，似乎所有车队都处在和我们相同的曲线上。每支车队大约每两个月开发出半秒的进步。因此，如果与开发周期不同步半个阶段，就会像我们年初那样落后半个转。
“一个开发周期就会把这些差距抹平。这感觉相当可怕。但你也知道，油箱里还储备着不少东西。问题只是我们什么时候把这些部件带来。”
"我们的策略就是努力保持领先，并确保我们交付的下一批性能提升能恢复原来的局面，恢复我们在赛季初投入的优势。"
"我们只需要挺过这些可怕的时刻，也就是其他人带来他们所有炫酷新部件的时候。"
英文原文
Why Mercedes finds other F1 teams' upgrades "scary" with its out-of-phase plan
Decision to push W17's design to the limit led to Mercedes lagging behind other teams in 2026's F1 development battle
Lando Norris, McLaren, George Russell, Mercedes
Mercedes technical director James Allison says the team's decision to keep developing its 2026 Formula 1 car late has put it "out of phase" with the other teams around it, causing a leapfrog effect as in-season updates produce large performance gains.
The W17 has been the class of the field so far, starting out the year with a 1-2 finish in Australia and going on to claim eight wins in the opening 11 races of F1's new era. Although the team is the firm championship favourite, this has not stopped the likes of Ferrari and McLaren beating it to victories on merit over the course of 2026.
Allison, speaking on the team's Nu Silver Arrows Radio Show podcast, stated that the team was finding "about six to seven times" more lap time per week in the wind tunnel compared to last season. This demonstrates the difference between finding gains under a new ruleset compared to a more mature, end-of-life set of regulations.
He also revealed that the team had elected to push the design of its W17 car late. When teams design their cars, they usually elect a "design freeze" point, where the car will be manufactured as-is and further developments will be packaged up as updates for later in the season.
Mercedes chose to move that freeze point back, compressing the manufacturing time but allowing it to effectively include early-season updates into the launch car. Allison says that this had "less than no contingency" if issues arose, but it allowed the team to take advantage of the continued development curve.
"Aerodynamically, the gain rate for each passing week in the wind tunnel, the amount of lap time we find – that's the gain rate – is about six to seven times what it was last year," Allison said.
"It's about half a second every two months, something like that, so that's really, really steep. And we did everything in our power to launch a car at the start of the year that was going to be strong.
"Thank goodness it was a fair effort. But one of the things about our development strategy was we took a decision internally on the aerodynamic side and on the bodywork side of the car that we were going to leave it later than we've ever left a car before, by several weeks. And that we were going to do a plan that had less than no contingency in it.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, George Russell, Mercedes
"As a result of that plan, we got as much, that very, very steep development slope, we got as much of that steep development slope in the first car at the first race as I think was humanly possible to get in there. And we emptied everything out to do that. Other teams maybe didn't arrive with quite the sort of quite such a late braking, as close to the wire result. As a consequence, they updated their car sooner."
Allison says that, although this offered Mercedes an advantage at the start of the year, it left the team with nothing in the pipeline. This has put it "a race or two" behind its rivals in terms of producing updates, as it had to stock up on its further refinements.
He explained that a half-second advantage could be completely wiped out by the time other teams bring their updates, and this has left Mercedes potentially vulnerable while it awaits its own developments in the hope of restoring that advantage.
This explains the ebb-and-flow in performance between the teams; Ferrari found pace in Barcelona with a considerable update package, while McLaren's new floor in Hungary greased its own path to a first race win of the season.
"They fixed their car earlier in time, they then were developing the first upgrade to arrive sooner in the season. So we arrived, you know, bristling with performance, but with all of it spent," Allison continued.
"We've been filling up our tanks to give more, and we're a bit out of phase. And our development program, as a result of arriving early, is now running a race or two after the update rates of the others.
"It appears, looking at the lap times we're seeing, that everyone's on this same slope we're on. Everyone is developing around about half a second every two months. And so with that, being out of phase half a step with the development cycle means that you can have half a second like we did at the start of the year.
"One development cycle will bring that to nothing. And that feels quite scary. But also, you know that there's a load in the tank. It's just a question of when we're going to bring our bits.
"Our strategy is just to try to keep our nose ahead and to make sure that the next lump of performance that we deliver will restore the status quo ante, restore the goodness we put in at the beginning of the season.
"We just have to ride out these scary events where other people bring all their fancy new bits."
Motorsport.com ·
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