Mercedes opens up about factors that hurt Hamilton with W15

mercedes He believes the double whammy of sensitivity to the snap of brakes locking and oversteer during qualifying runs was the cause of the difficulties Lewis Hamilton Was in 2024.

Hamilton faced a challenging season with the W15 as he particularly found himself unable to get out of his car in qualifying as his team-mate. george russell,

In a 24-race season that included six sprint events, Russell outscored him 24–6, with numbers of 19–5 if you exclude the sprints.

This deficit to Russell was sometimes only a tenth of a second, but with the F1 grid being so competitive last season, it was enough to drop Hamilton several places off the grid – making his recovery on Sunday difficult.

Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ head of trackside engineering, said Hamilton ultimately struggled to cope with a car that was not fast enough and had a narrow set-up window.

But the seven-time world champion had some idiosyncrasies in his driving which meant he was not as comfortable doing everything that was possible on the new tyres.

“The car wasn’t as fast, and that’s something we’re trying to solve,” said Shovlin, reflecting on what the issues were at play for Hamilton.

“It’s not easy to get the car into a good balance window, and especially once you get there, keeping it there is a challenge.

“On top of all that, I think you know Lewis has struggled on lap one. His race pace has been up all weekend. But it’s just with a close grid, you can often see more of that from your team-mate. Start some places behind, and then you’re stopped and can’t show what you can do.

“But the study on Lewis’s race pace has been very good. He showed in Las Vegas that if he has a car that works the way he wants it, he can fight at the front on the straight. And we have seen the old Lewis. “

Shovlin detailed that there were some specifications on those qualifying runs that Hamilton was not particularly comfortable with.

“The problem for them is really when you’re trying to squeeze out that last tenth or two,” he said.

“Trying to avoid brake locking, trying to avoid snap on exit has been difficult. Those are just those issues.

“But the way the team looks at it is that we need to give Lewis the same car as we had in Vegas, where it suits his style, and he can do his best work with it.”

While there seems to be a trend towards drivers who are good at braking – like Hamilton, Daniel Ricciardo And kevin magnussen – Not everyone who has experienced challenges with this generation of ground-effect car is convinced that this is the main factor.

He believes perhaps more important is the challenge of getting the cars rolling on the throttle, but without overheating the rear end.

“I think these days, a big part of it is keeping the heat out of the rear tires,” he said. “If you approach any corners in a way that means they’re hot, or if you have to twist the car on the throttle, you’ll struggle with that.

“(Braking style) could be a factor in all this, but I don’t really know enough about Magnussen and Ricciardo to know if that was their issue.

“But certainly the most important thing is to keep the heat away from the rear tires about half to two thirds of the circuit into a round.”

Russell was consistently able to get more than the W15, which suggests there may be something to do with the different styles between him and Hamilton.

But Shovlin didn’t think there was a clear explanation for why Russell came out on top in qualifying issues.

Asked if there was any explanation that could be seen on the data, Shovlin said: “I mean, not really in style or approach, because Lewis is intelligent enough to know if something works for George. So he can adapt his driving to go in that direction.

“There are things that you can see that eventually, when they really start to push, that’s when you start to get snaps of oversteer on the exit.

“And that, sometimes, is an area that might hurt Lewis more than George. But, as I said, the focus of our year has been on how we get the car that way.” “Do that to allow Lewis to drive it at the limit and not have those problems.”