Re-evaluation of the LHC potential for the measurement of $m_W$

We present a study of the LHC sensitivity to the W boson mass based on simulation studies. We find that both experimental and phenomenological sources of systematic uncertainties can be strongly constrained with Z measurements: the lineshape is robustly predicted, and its analysis provides an accurate measurement of the detector resolution and absolute scale, while the differential cross-section analysis absorbs most of the strong interaction uncertainties. A sensitivity $\delta m_W \sim 7 \MeV$ for each decay channel (W --> e nu, W --> mu nu), and for an integrated luminosity of 10 fb-1, appears as a reasonable goal.