Hamilton has not had it all his own way since Toto Wolff decided to ditch Valtteri Bottas and promote academy driver George Russell. The young Brit bested his team mate in their first year together in 2022 and Hamilton returned the favour in ’23.
This year Lewis has been out qualified by Russell again but in recent weeks has been closing the gap with the score currently at 6-8. His two victories in Silverstone and Belgium see him sixth in the driver’s championship on 150 points, while George is two slots back with a score of 116 after fourteen races.
The soon to be Ferrari driver benefitted from Russell being disqualified following the chequered flag in Belgium with George having won the race with a one stop strategy. The resulting DSQ meant there was a 32 point swing between the Mercedes team mates.
Mercedes track side engineering director explained in Spa the reason for Hamilton’s resurgence after a poor start to the year which saw Lewis finish no higher than sixth in the first eight Grand Prix of the year.
“I think early on perhaps Lewis was finding the car more difficult to deal with,” said Andrew Shovlin. “One of the areas that we’ve improved with the car is being able to land the setup in FP1.
“That’s a good foundation to start building on performance and 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.
“So that certainly helped and it’s probably fair to say that in the earlier races Lewis was finding it more difficult to set up than George.”
Earlier in the season, Lewis had been in control of his own setup decisions and was often seen late in FP3 not making tweaks but big changes just before the cars were about to qualify.
In China Toto Wolff admitted, “We made too many extreme changes after the sprint and that made the most important part of the weekend much more challenging.” Andrew Shovlin also admitted the changes had been at Hamilton’s request.
In recent Grand Prix, car 44 has not experimented wildly with big changes in its setup and the results have been coming for Hamilton who has now overtaken his team mate in the title race.
Yet the scars of pre-season are still being felt by certain members of the Mercedes team. Hamilton’s SHOCK announcement that having just signed a new contract with Mercedes, he was exercising his exit clause at the end of this season.
Mercedes scraped home just ahead of Ferrari at the end of the 2023 season but the Italian’s were showing greater promise going into the winter as Mercedes again went back to the drawing board.
Clearly Lewis Hamilton believed there was more hope of claiming the elusive eight drivers title by leaving for Maranello than remaining with the team which provided him with the car to win six of his seven titles.
Yet Hamilton’s decision to leave was something of a push-pull affair given Mercedes lack of commitment to his future. The F1 star had been in negotiations into the autumn to agree a n ew contract which satisfied Lewis’ plans.
The two year deal announced by both parties in reality had been a one year agreement with options to bolt on a second. Further, Toto Wolff has had his eye on Kimi Antonelli for some time and after losing out to Red Bull over a young Max Verstappen, Lewis long term future with Mercedes was always in doubt.
Of course Wolff, Hamilton and Mercedes closed ranks following the big Ferrari news but now the Mercedes team boss has opened up on the turmoil caused by Hamilton’s decision and the timing of it.
Now the Mercedes boss tells Sky F1 that the end of the eleven year relationship wasn’t an amicable divorce. “There is a professional relationship and a personal one. But when we had signed a short-term contract, it was clear that this could happen. What hurt me was that I didn’t have time to react.
“It all happened in one day and when we were reflecting on the timing of the announcement, it was clear that the news had leaked by Ferrari, and that it was coming on the very day of the communication of their financial results.”
Toto explains how he had too little time to properly inform the sponsors and shareholders, which of course creates an impression that the team boss is not in control of the situation.
“Somewhere I read a motto: ‘Play hard, forgive quickly and apologise when you’re wrong.’ I mean, our personal relationship has not been affected,” continues Toto.
“If I put myself in his shoes I can understand it, the team was not doing very well, it is in the last phase of its career and everyone wants to wear a red suit with the little horse. And also financially surely there were very favourable conditions.”
“I understand his motivations and I am absolutely at peace with him, our relationship is much deeper. But we didn’t divorce amicably,” concluded Wolff.
Hamilton has faced the inevitable questions in recent weeks as Mercedes won three in four races while Ferrari have fallen back from their early season form.
“Whatever course and trajectory the team [Mercedes] is on for next year, there are things I hopefully will have been a part of and I am proud of that. My job next year will be to start with the other team, and they are doing a great job,” said Lewis dismissing any notion he regretted quitting Mercedes.
