MAUGER
Mercedes and its f ight to get back to the front of F1
This might sound harsh but, given that Ferrari and McLaren haven’t won a Formula 1 world title since 2008, many neutrals have been looking to Mercedes to provide opposition to Red Bull. And, so far in this second ground-effect era, it has failed to do so.
For this year, a change in design concept created some hope that Mercedes could turn the tide. It still could but, as Alex Kalinauckas and Jake Boxall-Legge show in our cover feature starting on page 18, there are still plenty of hurdles to overcome. That’s perhaps to be expected given Red Bull’s head start in this ruleset, but F1 needs someone to challenge Max Verstappen sooner rather than later, and it would be nice to see Lewis Hamilton end his time at Mercedes with some stirring performances at the front before heading to Ferrari.
Ollie Bearman beat Hamilton to his Ferrari debut by subbing for Carlos Sainz at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The 18-year-old Briton did a fine job, so we’ve taken a look through the history books this week to pick out the 10 drivers who impressed the most while making their world championship debuts for the famous team (p28). McLaren has achieved one motorsport goal this season. Thanks to Sam Bird’s fine last-lap pass in Brazil, the Woking squad is now a winner in Formula E. Stefan Mackley was in Sao Paulo to see how Bird scored his first win in over two years (p44).
The other big event last weekend was the Sebring 12 Hours. Cadillac perhaps should have won and Porsche could have done, but it was Acura that took a narrow victory in a dramatic finish (p38).
Kevin Turner Chief Editor
kevin.turner@autosport.com
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Cover image Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images; Tengyart/Unsplash
PIT & PADDOCK 4 Red Bull fallout has driver market abuzz 6 McLaren targets May updates 8 Cadillac to split with Ganassi 10 Drugovich back to racing – in ELMS 12 Top five non-champ races to revive 13 Australian Grand Prix preview 15 Opinion: Alex Kalinauckas 17 Guest column: Rob Smedley
FEATURES 18 What next for Mercedes in F1? 26 Technical focus on the Mercedes W15 28 Top 10 Ferrari F1 debutants 34 Pernilla Solberg’s latest rallying role
RACE CENTRE 38 Deletraz spoils Cadillac’s Sebring party 44 Bird flies to McLaren’s first Formula E win
CLUB AUTOSPORT 55 Turkington takes on multiple club series 56 640bhp Alfa Giulia Quadrifoglio to race 58 Top field for British Rally Championship 61 Opinion: Stephen Lickorish 62 National report: Silverstone 64 We tackle Ginetta/PalmerSport shootout 66 Helping underfunded drivers go racing
FINISHING STRAIGHT 68 What’s on this week 71 Introducing: Nikita Johnson 72 From the archive: 1980 Spanish GP 74 My favourite car: Anthony Davidson
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21 MARCH 2024 AUTOSPORT.COM 3
