Lewis Hamilton is leaving Mercedes to join Ferrari next season and certain F1 commentators have accused him of having ‘mentally checked out’ following his worst start to a Formula One season since 2009. The seven times world champion has been out qualified by his team mate on the last five occasions and George Russell has finished ahead of Lewis the last four times Mercedes cars have both seen the chequered flag.

The team developed an entirely new platform for their 2024 W15 car and have struggled to find the right setup over the first three rounds of this season. Admitting in Australia that the current car had a similar feel to its predecessors, Hamilton had been making wild setup changes in many of the practice sessions in Bahrain, , Jeddah and Melbourne.

 

 

 

Wolff apologetic continues

Mercedes even decided to change the entire rear wing on Lewis car during the final practice session in Jeddah, while the rest of the teams and drivers were fine tuning their cars in readiness for the afternoon’s qualifying. Hamilton reverted to the Russell setup for qualifying, but was last knocked out of the top ten shootout by rookie Ferrari driver Oli Bearman who was a mere 0.036 seconds slower than Lewis.

A frustrated team boss Toto Wolff has been fielding awkward questions during the first three Grand Prix, claiming the team is motivated but at present can’t solve the “physics” conundrum. The Austrian admitted he felt like self harming at times given the early season form the W15 has demonstrated.

“McLaren was 17th, 18th, 19th, and [now] they are 40 seconds ahead of us. Obviously, on one side, I want to punch myself on the nose. On the other side, it is also a testimony that when you get things right, you can turn it around pretty quickly and we’ve just got to continue to believe,” Toto said following the double DNF in Australia.

As TJ13 reported last week, the debrief from down under back in Milton Keynes saw Mercedes identify one of the contributing factors to their poor form this year.

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Mercedes setup pattern appears

“We are starting to see a pattern emerge that most weekends we have a period in the weekend where we are feeling confident about the car, but then in the paying sessions, in qualifying and the race, that slips through our fingers,” Mercedes Technical director James Allison explained.

With George Russell splitting the two Ferrari cars during FP1 in Suzuka, ex-F1 driver Anthony Davidson expressed surprise at their improved performance. “That Mercedes splitting the two Ferrari’s and only four and a half tenths away from this heavily upgraded Red Bull – and with Max Verstappen putting a really sweet lap together – for me thats the surprise of the session.”

Of course with Suzuka FP2 times well over four seconds slower due to wet weather, this meant Mercedes were unable to analyse their performance in the warmer conditions of the afternoon and this is around the time the crucial qualifying and Grand Prix take place.

“I think the temperatures are definitely having some kind of impact,” concludes Anthony Davidson. “Do you remember how hot it was at this race last year?” He asked co-commentator Rachael Brooks.

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F1 expert predicts cool temperatures helped

“Everyone forgot about this race being hot because it was followed by Qatar which was ridiculously hot.”

Lewis Hamilton described FP1 at Suzuka as “the best session” he has experienced behind the wheel of the W15. That is in stark contrast to his feelings two weeks ago in Melbourne where Lewis was highly critical of the car.

The seven times world champion was fifth quickest in the first Friday session and just half a second off the pace of world champion Max Verstappen.

Now 39 years of age, Hamilton revealed: “It was a great session, it was a really good session for us. It was the best session that we’ve had this year, it’s the best the car has felt this year so far. So far, pretty positive.

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Hamilton warns Mercedes not to “eff it up”

“I was really excited because this is a circuit that every driver loves to drive. In the last couple of years, we’ve had a really difficult car and a difficult balance to drive here. And given the difficult last few races we’ve had, great work has been done this past week and we just seem to have hit the ground a bit more in a sweeter spot.

“So, I haven’t really made any changes since [FP1]. I think we’ve got a better platform or baseline to start from, so as long as we don’t make too many changes and eff it up… I think probably just stay where we are and hopefully we’ll get a [good weekend].”

Of course Lewis fails to account for the fact that the first practice session is likely too be the coldest of the weekend and as Allison claimed in the debrief, the W15’s performance deteriorates when the temperatures climb.

Team mate George Russell was equally pleased with the Mercedes car: “We definitely performed better than we expected, so that was a pleasant surprise. The car was feeling really nice to drive, and Lewis and I were really happy with the balance.”

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Russell realistic

Russell though did acknowledge the lack of running in FP2 has disguised the true picture of where the W15 is at present.

“It has been performing better when it’s been slightly colder, but we’ve been doing a lot of test items to try and make that car a little bit more consistent when conditions are variable, so time will tell. FP2 was definitely a miss for everybody as we had some interesting things we wanted to try, but that’s the nature of Formula 1 sometimes,” he said.

Yet despite the positives, the British driver believes they will have a difficult weekend ahead.

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Tyre wear will be critical

“I think it’s going to be very challenging because it’s a clear one-lap tyre in qualifying. You can’t do multiple laps on the tyre.

“Most drivers may only have three sets for qualifying, four sets for qualifying, so you’ve got to be nailing those laps on every opportunity if you want any hope of getting to Q3 with two sets of new tyres. But I think you’re going to see quite high degradation, and that’s where the focus is going to be.”

Whether Mercedes are deceiving themselves over the progress they made over the past two weeks will only become clear when the qualifying session gets under way in Suzuka tomorrow.

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Formula One arrived this week for its 36th visit to the Suzuka circuit which many of the drivers’ cite as their favourite track. Its an old school venue with a narrower track than its modern equivalents, with small run off areas and super high speed cornering.

Friday practice was curtailed as the rain came for Free Practice Two with Max Verstappen setting the fastest time in the dry FP1 with a 1:30:056 – over a second and a half quicker than the comparable session held last year… READ MORE