HAMILTON’S STRUGGLES TO SIGN OFF A REMARKABLE ERA
“To finish on a high with the team would be a dream. We have gone through a whole heap together. It would be the greatest moment to be able to help them get back to the top.”
So far, Lewis Hamilton’s dream ending to his hyper-successful, 12-season Mercedes Formula 1 stint is not becoming a reality. In the year’s opening two rounds, he’s trailed team-mate George Russell in qualifying, and they might have been further apart on the grid last time out in Jeddah had Russell not blown his only new tyre run in Q3.
In the races, Hamilton’s seventh in Bahrain and ninth in Jeddah mean he’s five places and 10 points adrift of his team-mate in the drivers’ standings. Russell has finished fifth and sixth so far.
“It’s frustrating to three years in a row be in almost the same position,” Hamilton said of Mercedes’ start to 2024. “It’s definitely tough, but we’ll get our heads down and keep working away. I know everyone back at the factory is pushing as hard as they can, but we’ve definitely got to make some big changes. We haven’t made big enough changes, perhaps. You look at the three teams that are ahead of us and they still have different concepts to where we are in some areas. So, we’ve got some performance to add, that’s for sure.”
At least his final Mercedes F1 car, the W15, has been designed with his specific requests in mind. These centred on the car more closely following the Red Bull downwash sidepod concept this time, and also addressed how Hamilton felt he was struggling with Mercedes’ cockpit placement being further forwards in 2023. Then, he just felt he wasn’t being listened to – a point he makes clear in the most recent series of Drive to Survive.
“Obviously with Lewis’s experience, the car has been designed around his wishes,” Russell explained in Bahrain. “With the car being sat further rearwards than we were last year, the Red Bull-esque sidepods on the side and a slightly different steering rack.”
When it comes to signing a replacement for the Ferrari-bound Hamilton, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff appears to be in no rush.
His team benefited from Ollie Bearman showing well for Ferrari in his surprise Jeddah debut in place of Carlos Sainz, with the 18-year-old now set to return to Formula 2 action against Mercedes junior Andrea Kimi Antonelli at the Prema Racing junior category powerhouse.
Mercedes feels that if Antonelli can run Bearman close in F2, then it will know how he might perform at the top level. But, resting against this is how the 17-year-old Italian has made a low-key start in F1’s support category. And there are alluring veterans in Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso who just might be on Mercedes’ 2025 radar now too…
“We’re going to wait,” Wolff explained in Jeddah. “We have a few interesting options. And the more we’re able to [wait, we can] assess how the season pans out. Young drivers with us, against slightly older ones – that’s not going to be a decision which we want to take in the next few weeks. It’s rather a few months, depending on where it goes.”
“IT’S FRUSTRATING TO THREE YEARS IN A ROW BE IN ALMOST THE SAME POSITION”