The Mercedes Formula 1 team thinks that Lewis Hamilton has benefited more than team-mate George Russell from the gains made with the W15.
The German manufacturer had a tough start to the season, with its 2024 F1 challenger proving to be inconsistent and having a narrow performance window.
However, as the squad has unlocked the secrets of its potential, the car has moved towards the front of the grid – and has now won three of the last four races.
That step forward has also coincided with Hamilton being able to get more out of it, having struggled against Russell in the early stages of the campaign.
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin thinks that Hamilton’s form now is so much better because he was especially struggling with the characteristics of the car in its infancy.
“I think early on, perhaps Lewis was finding the car more difficult to deal with,” explained Shovlin.
“One of the areas that we've improved with the car is being able to land with a set-up in P1 that is a good foundation to start building on performance, and then fine-tuning it. That helps your weekend enormously.
“In the early part of the year, we were making relatively small changes, and suddenly the whole car balance left us, and we were really struggling.
“And, yeah, it's probably fair to say that in the earlier races, Lewis was finding it more difficult to set up than George.”
Mercedes and Hamilton are aware that the current generation of ground-effect cars and tyres are not ideal for the seven-time champion’s driving style, as he cannot exploit his full potential in braking.
However, as Mercedes has unlocked more speed from the car, Shovlin says that both drivers are now demanding similar things from it.
“There's a certain driving style that suits these tyres,” he said. “You tend to find that the two drivers are never that far apart on set-up now.
“So once the car's in a good window, the same thing's working pretty well for both of them. And between sessions, they're studying what the other one's doing to try to find where the gains are.
“But through the year, the two of them have been working together. Early on, neither of them wanted to be finishing where we were, and they were able to help each other through trying different experiments with set-up and driving style. Overall, you progress as a team, and that's how a team with two drivers works.”
Shovlin admitted that early races were a particular challenge for everyone because the team felt so close to the front, but was still not finishing in the positions it wanted.
“In the first bit of the year, a lot of it was quite frustrating, because we were finishing fifth, sixth, seventh, and often you'd see that with just another tenth of performance we'd have been three places up the grid," he added. "So we've made progress.
“That's why we're able to now finish on the podiums. But regardless of whether the car's quick or whether it's not quick enough, if it's slow, the drivers are always there helping us try and know what's the next step, where's the best place for us to spend our development resource and try to turn it into performance.
“That hasn't changed. It's just with a quicker car, it's all a lot more fun.”
