Mercedes F1 tech chief Allison on board for America’s Cup bid

Mercedes F1 tech chief Allison on board for America’s Cup bid

 

 

 
Allison will draw on his vast F1 experience and design expertise in his role as the technical lead of the rebranded British team that will be once again skippered by four-time Olympic gold medalist Sir Ben Ainslie.Mercedes supported the Ineos Team UK through its applied science division in Brackley at last year’s event as Ainslie’s squad lost out to Italy’s Luna Rossa in Auckland.”For Ineos Britannia’s latest attempt at the 37th running of the America’s Cup that will take place in 2024, Mercedes will increase its involvement by drafting in the services of Allison, who stepped back from his day-to-day role as the team’s F1 technical director earlier this year as part of a promotion to CTO. Allison will dovetail his role as Mercedes F1 CTO alongside assisting with Ineos Britannia’s project in the design of its AC75 boat alongside Geoffrey Willis, technical director of Mercedes Applied Sciences and Ineos Britannia, and experienced naval designer Martin Fischer. Related Hamilton not against Mercedes returning to silver F1 livery Norris was ‘depressed a lot of the time’ in debut F1 season”When people talk about the America’s Cup being like F1 on water, most people are thinking: ‘It’s a bit hydrodynamic, it’s a bit aerodynamic, it’s technological’,” Allison said. “But the most striking comparison to me is that it’s difficult.”And the way it’s worked OK for us in F1 is having the humility to admit that it’s difficult and that your competitors will eat you up if for a moment you stop remembering that it’s difficult. And this challenge is proper difficult.” Related F1 sprint events could make up ‘one third’ of 2022 calendar How can I watch the 2021 Turkish GP? F1 timings and TV schedulesm8791_crop169014_1024x576_proportional_1608371672E820.jpg Allison continued: “Last time round, we knew of some of the difficulties the team had endured and were involved in trying to reduce some of them and try to help the boat become more competitive.”But we knew that fixing some of them would have involved a time machine. We would have had to go back and make a few decisions differently at the start of the campaign and it could have run in a different direction. “So we find ourselves at the beginning of a fresh one with the combined learning of the Ineos team and the part we played in the previous one coupled with all the people who’ve joined us from other campaigns for this one.”We are tying to combine it to make sure all our knowledge is pooled at the beginning so we don’t wish we had a time machine two years from now. We feel we have stepped through this complicated design space in a good way to bring that boat that Jim talks about, the boat good enough to give Ben and the other sailors a chance to win.””4 “2 

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