F1 | Here is the W15, Lewis Hamilton's latest Mercedes

Mercedes, where were we? Toto Wolff and his associates hope to remember and start again from the last championship brought to Brackley and certainly not from the last two unsuccessful seasons from a technical and results point of view which sent her into oblivion from which she has not yet managed to recover.

Today the German team presented the W15, the new weapon with which it will take part in the 2024 Formula 1 season precisely to pick up where it left off… when it was still the point of reference in the category.

The W15 continues to be predominantly black. The livery uses carbon black for weight reasons, with the exception of the airscoope – red due to the sponsor Ineos – and, above all, the entire nose. Petronas green finds extreme importance this year, explicitly lightening almost the entire front part of the car. But it's not just the green of the title sponsor, because the two green stripes do nothing but separate the silver Mercedes which returns to stand out on a single-seater from Brackley after a year. The silver also continues on the horizontal part of the bellies before fading to black on the bonnet. The classic stars of the Mercedes logo are placed here, including a small red star in memory of Niki Lauda.

From a technical point of view, the W15 had already been “spied” on the day of the presentation of the Aston Martin AMR24. Alonso and Stroll's single-seater adopts the same gearbox and suspension as the W15, so it was rather easy to understand that the German single-seater would also adopt a push-rod solution at the rear. The same architecture was also chosen for the front suspension.

George Russell, Mercedes W15

Photo by: Mercedes AMG

On the sides the W15 does not have the tubs seen on Aston Martin, Ferrari and McLaren, but the curve of the same is from the Red Bull school. The air inlet for cooling the radiators is quite small, while the passenger compartment should have been moved further back.

The disturbing but quickly revealed wrong philosophy with which the ambitious W13 was designed, the first single-seater with ground effect due to the new regulations, was confirmed in broad terms last year due to a blunder, the victory at the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix signed by George Russell and the double completed thanks to Lewis Hamilton.

The W15, on the other hand, is a real change, a turning of the page, a changing chapter. Indeed, change your book to try to write a different story, which can start better and, above all, have a great happy ending.

Speaking of a happy ending, Lewis Hamilton, who is in his last season as an official Mercedes driver, also hopes for all this after the sensational announcement that came a few days ago regarding his move to Ferrari which will take place at the beginning of next year, in 2025.

This is why Hamilton, who has been without a victory for two years – a fact which has never occurred during his career in Formula 1 – has a mad desire to close his story with Mercedes in the best way possible, which has led him to reap a sequence of incredible satisfactions, becoming the most successful driver in the history of the world championship, equal to Michael Schumacher with 7 world titles.

In all of this, George Russell will have the great opportunity to lead the team for the first year. With Hamilton now leaving, it will be up to him to show the way to the team led by Toto Wolff. Not an easy task, but in life there comes a time of burdens, as well as honors. And this, for Russell, seems like the right time to take the final step towards the status of Formula 1 star after having already given glimpses of what could be on an ongoing basis, but which hasn't yet been.