Lewis Hamilton will be delighted to see the back of Mercedes’ W15 a week after the Qatar Grand Prix. He’s been wrestling with the car throughout the 2024 season.
Mercedes have struggled to truly understand all three of their cars during F1’s ground-effect era. They were dominant in the previous ruleset, winning eight straight constructors’ titles, but they’ve not yet found a solution for the current aerodynamic puzzle.
What’s made this year especially frustrating, though, is that the car has race-winning potential. Mercedes have won just one race fewer than McLaren and Ferrari and yet they’re nearly 160 points behind them in the standings.
That’s because their car has a relatively small working window. This would be acceptable if they could find it consistently, or broaden it, but neither has been possible.
Hamilton is facing the lowest championship finish of his career. Teammate George Russell recently passed him and demoted him to seventh.
There are only nine points separating the two drivers ahead of the Qatar GP. But all the momentum is with Russell right now.
Lewis Hamilton has bemoaned Mercedes oversteer at Qatar Grand Prix
Speaking over the team radio during the one and only practice session in Qatar, Hamilton told his team that he had ‘no stability’. This indicates that the rear of his car was loose through the corners.
BBC Sport’s Andrew Benson finds it ‘weird’ to hear Hamilton complaining about that issue. He used to be ‘famous’ for dealing with oversteer.
But the seven-time world champion has lost some of his racing identity this year. Benson says he’ll be wondering whether he’s to blame for his poor season.
Hamilton has surprisingly failed to ‘adapt’ to the current generation of cars. But Mercedes have acknowledged that the W15 is a unique challenge.
“His darkest demons will be asking ‘is it me?’, because he actually won’t know right now,” Benson said on the Chequered Flag podcast. “What’s weird is why Hamilton hasn’t been able to adapt. He’s always been famous for his adaptability.
“The other weirdness is that the big thing he’s complained about this year is rear-end stability, whereas in the past he’s always been famous for his ability to cope well with oversteer. Those two things are kind of paradoxical.”
The biggest reason Lewis Hamilton may lose out on 2025 world title at Ferrari
Hamilton went on to qualify seventh for the Qatar GP Sprint, five places and four-tenths behind Russell. His single-lap struggles are a significant concern heading into 2025, when he comes against a master qualifier in Charles Leclerc.
Hamilton couldn’t believe the deficit to Lando Norris, the eventual polesitter, on Friday evening. If the weekend follows the typical 2024 pattern, he’ll gain ground in the race but rue his lowly starting position.
The form of his new team Ferrari will offer encouragement. While McLaren are firm favourites to win the title, the Scuderia are clearly on the verge of ending their drought.
However, Helmut Marko noted one problem for Hamilton heading into 2025. Unlike Max Verstappen, he’ll be up against a teammate who’s bound to take points off him over the course of the year, which will hurt him in the drivers’ standings.
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