Lewis Hamilton has written F1 history for much of his seventeen years in the sport and amongst those tomes will be the records of infamous driver animosity episodes across the garage of either McLaren or Mercedes. In his rookie year Lewis took on as his team mate the newly crowned double world champion Fernando Alonso.
He drove the Spaniard to distraction who in Hungary 2007 deliberately waited in the team’s pit box to prevent Hamilton making a final run in the pole position shootout session. Alonso and Hamilton finished on equal points that season, but the inter team battles cost them both the drivers’ title which was won by Kimi Raikkonen in a Ferrari. Winning the final round in Brazil cost Alonso his third world title as he could manage just P3 while Lewis came on in seventh place.
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Lewis’ time with Jenson saw some niggle and accusations of favouritism from Hamilton, when at the Belgium GP he was whipped by Button in the race for pole position. Hamilton then tweeted the teams telemetry in an effort to demonstrate it was not his driving which had lost out to Jenson. Nico Rosberg became Hamilton’s arch nemesis for three seasons eventually triumphing over the British driver with mix of psychology and driving brilliant to claim the 20126 drivers’ championship.
The came the epic year that was 2021. Despite not having the best car, Red Bull mounted a challenge to the night of Mercedes who were on course for their eight consecutive driver and constructor titles. Max was on topper most of the year but a late run of form (and new engines) for Lewis saw him take the battle down to the final race of the year. Of course the rest is history. Lewis never got the record eighth title and Verstappen started a roll he is still atop of.
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Mercedes false dawns
Since the ground effect car design regulations were introduced into Formula One in 2022, the once dominant Mercedes team have struggled to put up a serious challenge. George Russell has the only win for the Brackley based outfit, calming victory in Brazil two years ago.
During that time there have been a number of false dawns as the eight times world champions believed they had found a silver bullet upgrade, only for their hopes to be dashed once again. Such has been the lack lustre response by the Brackley engineers, Lewis Hamilton decided this winter they were not going to crack the new rules conundrum and so he’s put his faith in a move to Ferrari to revive his ailing fortunes.
However, there have been signs in Canada and Spain that Mercedes are now on a par with their arch Italian rivals, as George Russell claimed pole position in Montreal and a podium third in the race. Again in Barcelona, Lewis Hamilton topped a free practice timesheet going on to beat his team made to third, his first since Mexico 2023.
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Red Bull are suffering from driver new contract syndrome as Sergio Perez has been woeful over the last three events since inking in another two years with the Milton Keynes based team. This is problematic for their constructors’ championship hopes as Checo now sits behind both Ferrari drivers and Lando Norris.
Of course Max Verstappen can only collect 25 points for each race win and maybe another for the fastest lap, which would not be enough to hold off the challenge of either the Ferrari or McLaren duo finishing races immediately behind him.
Prior to the Monaco Grand Prix, Red Bull’s lead over closest rivals Ferrari was just 56 points. The home win for Charles Leclerc in the principality added to his team mates P3, closed this down to a mere 26 points. Then disaster struck in Canada with both Ferrari’s failing to make Q3 and neither scored points in the race either.
Meanwhile since Imola, McLaren have been making steady progress closing down the Red Bull lead. Following the race Imola, the papaya liveried team were 114 points behind the championship leaders. With Norris and Piastri contributing more often than the Red Bull duo, that gap is now down to just 93 points.
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Mercedes revival ironically helps RBR
Of course 60 points and 93 points deficits are a long way from thoughts of championship hopes, yet now McLaren are the lead rival to RBR, if the team get get Oscar in the bigger points more often, the gap will continue to fall.
Mercedes have made little progress on their deficit to the top of the table reducing it from 189 to 179 over the same four race weekends. Yet should the team continue its upward trend and keep Ferrari behind them, this will benefit Red Bull greatly while Checo is scoring just four points from the last four races.
Dr. Helmut Marko has now recognised the Mercedes resurgence could assist his own team in their efforts to retain the constructors’ title. “If Mercedes is there now, it will work out well for us and our calculations of the world championship,” the 81-year-old told OE24. Them taking points away from McLaren and Ferrari are only to the good of Max and his team.
Yet the Red Bull advisor cautions against complacency that their team’s star driver can carry the day single handedly. Verstappen looked to be driving on the limit this weekend in Barcelona and his car appeared to have no big advantage as it has done in previous months.
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Verstappen on the limit
In fact Max was also pushed hard in Imola and Montreal before he claimed victory and Dr. Marko believes this is not something the three times world champion can sustain all season long. With the performance of the McLaren of Lando Norris being stronger than Max in the second half of the Spanish GP, it was put to Marko that in fact Red Bull had lost their advantage.
“That is correct,” replied the Austrian, “Max cannot drive a whole season on the limit either. The overtaking manoeuvre with which he took the lead was extraordinary even for him. Max wins because he is so confident, not because the car is so good.” So Lewis Hamilton scoring as many podiums as he likes will greatly assist his arch rival Max Verstappen.
Safety cars in Miami and Canada proved to be vital in the respective wins for Norris and Verstappen, and while the race in Barcelona was uninterrupted, there was a significant piece of luck which gave Max the chance of winning the race.
The wind direction changed overnight from Saturday and a stiff breeze was blowing along the start/finish straight coming up the hill from turn one. This made it harder for the leading car to punch a hole in the air and easier for those following to slip stream as was evidenced at the start.
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Slice of luck with wind change for Max
Yet the fact most commentators failed to notice was this wind also benefitted Max when overtaking George on lap 2, but in fact hindered Norris attempts which followed for lap after lap. The Red Bull and the claret are both quicker in a straight line than the Mercedes and Max gambled on using up some of his new soft tyres to make the move on George and then enjoy the benefits of clean air to look after his rubber.
Norris in a much quicker car could not get by the Mercedes driver as had Max, despite having fresh rubber too and there was a reason why. Even though Max broke the 1 second DRS on George in a single lap, he remained close enough for several laps to create a slip stream benefit for the Mercedes driver, long enough for Norris fresh rubber to go off.
This meant by the time Norris cleared Russell he was 4.5 seconds behind Max now leading the race. As the various tyre strategies unwound, Lando was now 5.5 seconds behind Verstappen after they had both made their final pit stops. The British driver closed the gap lap after lap until it was just under 2 seconds as the pair came to start the final lap of the race.
So the change of wind together with a mistake from Norris, saw Max make the most of the conditions, but had the wind been a tail wind Russell may well have held on to the lead until the first round of tyre changes.
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Details matter, and this time it was Max who benefitted from a slice of luck.
On the matter of Marko calling for Mercedes to ‘pull their finger out’, the Austrian also had a hidden warning for Checo the the team should not be depending on others for success. “Now that everything is so close together, you can’t afford weaknesses,” Marko said referring to Perez poor qualifying form and prior to the race weekend the consultant had noted there were three good race tracks coming up for Perez to prove his worth.
Having finally made it out of Q1 (unlike in Monaco and Canada), Perez put his Red Bull car P8 in qualifying. But a three place grid drop for the Mexican driver carried over from Montreal saw him start the race in P11.
Despite all this talk of the field closing up, its important not to forget Max Verstappen in his Red B all has still won 7 of the 10 races held so far in 2024.
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All eyes on on Carlos Sainz as the Formula One driver market merry go round begins to slow. The Spaniard is being ousted from his home in Maranello to make way for Lewis Hamilton in 2025.
Ironically Ferrari have been no where over the last two Grand Prix weekends, while soon to be Hamilton’s ex-team Mercedes have claimed P3 and P4, with Russell on the podium in Canada and Hamilton on the presentation rostrum for the first time since the 2023 Mexican Grand Prix.
Of course it was just 0.035 seconds that covered the Mercedes and Ferrari duo’s in Barcelona qualifying, so all is not lost for the Scuderia. Further, had the race been run over just one lap more, Charles Leclerc would have passed the struggling George Russell who was running on the team’s poor choice of hard tyre for his final stint… READ MORE
