“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,”
