Uphill start
The start of the 2024 season for Lewis Hamilton it was the worst since the new score of 25 points per victory was introduced in 2010. The seven-time world champion – betrothed to Ferrari in 2025 – achieved a seventh and ninth place in the first two rounds in Sakhir and Jeddah and was on both occasions beaten in the race by teammate George Russell.
One of the reasons that pushed Hamilton to leave Mercedes was also the decision – taken by the team at the beginning of 2023 – to do not immediately follow the Brit's directions, who wanted to change the concept of the Anglo-German car a year ago. The team leaders arrived at this assessment a year late, but even at this start to the year Hamilton has not failed to express doubts about the technical characteristics of the W15.
The thoughts of Gary Anderson
However, he responded to Hamilton indirectly, from the columns of TheTelegraphthe former technical director of Jordan, Stewart and Jaguar Gary Anderson, now a columnist for the British newspaper. According to Anderson Hamilton and Mercedes have not yet fully understood how ground effect works: “After the race Hamilton said big changes needed to be made to the car. He said that other teams around them still have different concepts. But Hamilton is only talking about what can be seen“Anderson warned.
“The critical part of these cars is the bottom – added the British engineer – and Hamilton doesn't know what the other teams are doing. What you see is not necessarily what makes the machine work. He seems to think that if Mercedes makes his car look like a Red Bull, it will go as fast as a Red Bull, but that's not the case.. The W15 needs a lot more work than the visual concept, but the concern is that they still haven't figured out what a ground effect car needs“.
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