With five races down, the 2024 Formula One season is gathering momentum and next time out its a glitz and glamour new favourite around the Miami street track. Now Mercedes F1 would have us believe, its early days this year and theres plenty of time to turn around their woeful start to the year but with 20% of the race calendar already completed the same old excuses coming from Toto Wolff are starting to ring hollow.

One bright spot in China for the former world champions came as the result of wet weather during Sprint qualifying. As the rains came, Hamilton – like Samson in ancient times – rose one more time to claim pole position briefly before Lando Norris blitzed his lap time by over a second.

 

 

 

Wolff: “not good enough”

Lewis clung on during the Sprint race to claim second behind a recovering Max Verstappen but his day was to get much worse, as in the later Grand Prix qualifying session, Hamilton failed to make t out of Q1 and was set to start the race on the back row of the grid.

In the Grand Prix, Hamilton battled away, but his W15 car at times looked to have substantially inferior pace to even some of those in the lower mid-field.

A frustrated Toto Wolff gave a curt and clipped interview to Sky F1 where he admitted the results were not good enough.

“I think considering where we put the cars altogether, drivers and team, was not a good position for today. Not good enough overall,” he said.

“Lacking pace. We have got to dig deep. We have got something coming for Miami that looks like a good step, let’s see where that brings us out.”

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Hamilton ‘at sea’ over setup

A downbeat Russell who toiled away for sixth place in Shanghai, was also placing his hope on the upgrade coming in just under two weeks time but Toto’s admissions give the impression the team is lost and ‘all at sea.’

“It’s not an OK car,” he said. “We can see what the mistakes are on the car. We wanted to go a bit more aggressive to see if it was something so different we needed to do on that car and you can see Lewis today took it on him, that was maybe a step too far.”

Hamilton once again claimed he made large experimental setup changes during the weekend of the Chinese GP, something demonstrative of a team and driver searching for a needle in a haystack.

“The race car was not fast,” Wolff complained. “You hear him saying the car doesn’t turn and this is what we can see in the data. it wasn’t the right thing to do.”

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Mercedes hopes on Miami upgrade

The Mercedes boss was reluctant to answer when asked how much the Miami upgrade was worth. After pausing and a blink of the eyes Wolff said: “Let’s see. Hopefully a bit.”

Hamilton is only the latest in what has been something of a brain drain for Mercedes in recent years. Andy Cowell who was behind the all conquering Brixworth produced 2014 V6 Turbo Hybrid left to pursue other interests in 2020 then last year Mike Elliot left the team and was replaced by James Allison returning to the role of technical director.

BBC F1 writer Andrew Benson addressed suggestions that now Allison may be bound elsewhere in the future when speaking to the chequered flag podcast.

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Allison to leave Mercedes?

“He’s [Toto Wolff] not designing the car, the issue is the car design,” said Benson.

“Now, so that then passes the question onto the technical department, are they going to make changes there?

“Maybe, [but] are they likely to replace James Allison as technical director? I’d be absolutely dumbstruck if they did.

“James Allison is incredibly highly regarded; most people would regard him as the second-best technical leader in Formula 1 behind Adrian Newey.

“I think most people would think they’d lost their marbles if they got rid of Allison.”

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Hill says Mercedes aero team questionable

Damon Hill recently questioned the ability of the Mercedes aero department despite the team winning eight constructor and seven driver titles.

“On the Mercedes point, my anxiety is this. For a long time, Mercedes’s dominance really was down to their power unit,” said the 1996 F1 champion.

“They had the best power unit for a very long time and the aerodynamics were always slightly different to Red Bull’s.”

Hill points to the low rake designs Mercedes were famous for delivering, while Red Bull’s aero team have preferred to run with a big rake rear end concept. The suggestion is the Mercedes power unit made up for any aerodynamic insufficiency’s.

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Mercedes must replace lost personnel

“But, Mercedes stuck persistently, or doggedly, they looked like they were running a different aero on their car in previous regulations.

“Along come a new set of regs, what I’m saying is, is the Mercedes aero department missing a trick here?

“And they’ve lost quite a few good aero people to other teams now as well over time,” Hill concludes.

If Hill is correct, it begs the question whether retaining the services of Allison is such a nailed on decision as suggested by BBC’s Andrew Benson.

Formula One teams are not made in a moment and Mercedes clearly need to rebuild their team somewhat. This will take time and of concern to fans of the Silver Arrows will be can this be done before the next big rules change coming for the 2026 season.

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BREAKING: Red Bull offer Sainz 2025 driv

Formula One returned to China for the first time in half a decade this weekend meeting a number of surprises along the way. The first was the expected track resurfacing had not in fact taken place but a sealer had been ‘painted’ on to prevent further deterioration.

The result was the cars were 3-4 seconds a lap slower than when last here in 2019 but the reduced grip didn’t see tyre wear go to silly proportions. The newly confirmed contract extension for Fernando Alonso played out well for him and Aston Martin, as the Spanish maestro hauled his car into third place starts both in tyre Sprint and the Grand Prix… READ MORE