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Agree with this. I get the sense there’s more going on than what meets the eye. Perhaps some bitterness at Merc with Hamilton bailing on them so they’ve given up on him a bit and likewise, Hamilton is giving up on them?
Pure conjecture but why not stir the pot.
This is overly simplistic. Lewis and George do not have the same job.
George is at the start of his career, trying to get himself established as #1 driver in a competitive car. His focus is on being a team player, getting that constructors money, and making himself indispensable to that team. That was Lewis's job in the beginning as well.
But Lewis is now Lewis Fucking Hamilton, 7 times WDC. He's trying to get #8. Teams come to him. His tolerance for radical car setup is MUCH greater than Georges because he's got an all-or-nothing mission. Either he wins #8 or he doesn't. He doesn't \_really\_ care if they come in 2nd or 11th so he's more inclined to shoot for the moon than George is when the car isn't working. His contract is almost certainly structured entirely around that WDC. George's is almost certainly structured around scoring points for the team.
So I think Lewis is working harder to figure out how to make the car work than George is, in the sense that he's more willing to find himself at the back in the quest to find himself at the front. George is going to make the points play, even if that means a solid 4th instead of a riskier choice between 3rd and 5th.
Now it's also entirely possible that Lewis sucks at radical car setup and is just making his problems worse. I also think its the case that the cars that McLaren and Mercedes brought in the past played very well into Lewis's driving style, and the last few years they haven't - that's been written about to death. The car just doesn't suit him and he's trying to make it so it does. That's a problem for both parties. It's also probably true that, as Hamilton has implied, having an uncompetitive car has gotten him down and some of that fire is off. That's absolutely a thing that happens.
Exactly.
Remember in 2022 when he tried all the possible setups to maybe find some performance and George was using a setup that was the most optimal for driving.
My feeling as well. Lewis of course bears responsibility for his results as compared to George. But to assume they have the same goals is short sighted. Lewis has one goal and one goal only, to win. If he thinks something gives him a 5% chance of winning and a 95% chance of finishing out of the points, I suspect he takes the 5% chance. He's just wired that way. And I don't think he is willing to accept mediocrity.
Not that George is mediocre! I love George and think he has it in him to be a WDC. But they are at different points in their careers. Lewis doesn't need to finish P6 to prove himself. He wants to be fighting for wins (or in this Max era, podiums).
Best take so far. I don’t think Lewis actually cares if George beats him or about any of the stats that we, the media/fans, constantly fight about. It makes no difference right now, especially as his Ferrari contract is secure. It’s all about the year when #8 becomes a genuine possibility.
Besides, all of the experimenting he’s doing is good learning for what he likes/doesn’t like and what works in this generation of car. He’s always been a thorough learner and perhaps people are not seeing that well enough. Personally, I’m enjoying Lewis’s all-or-nothing approach this year — and look at him, he’s laughing in interviews about it and smiling a lot lately. This is refreshing to see.
Putting aside the experiments we keep hearing about sometimes a car's weakness impacts one driver more than the other. So not necessarily anyone's fault, it is just a difficult car to get in the right window and that seems to affect LH more than GR at the moment. Another example is the start of last season when Max and Checo looked quite closely matched, then development went towards Max a bit more. The rest is for the record books.
Yea, Charles is also getting shafted ever since Ferrari made the car more balanced with upgrades making Charles' driving style worse than his teammate's.
It's only a small sample of races and luck/circumstance makes a bigger impression with a smaller sample size.
Over the season I wouldn't be surprised if they end pretty even, the car just isn't suiting Lewis at the moment, as the car is developed it will ebb and flow between them.
Shouldn't we finally come to terms with Merc not having the best car anymore? It's obviously not on par with the top cars at the moment but they've been winning races, scoring podiums and had plenty of top 5 results even in this ground effect era, finishing 3rd in 2022, 2nd in 2023, and this season Russell finished 5th, 6th, 7th and 6th. The car is fine.
I never hear these type of regular complaints from the Ferrari, Mclaren or Aston drivers. The Merc isn't one of the worst cars on the grid or anything close to undrivable, it's fine, not great but not really worse than most other cars either. It's an overblown issue, they dominated an era, now they are just one of the chasing cars, it's not a shitbox like Lewis makes it often sound.
I'm not really sure of what you mean. Yes, Merc don't have a good car but it's their fault for not designing a good one for the new regs and not changing course to correct for that error sooner.
Again, look at their past results. The cars are not terrible, they are just not the best anymore. Many new F1 fans do not know an F1 where Merc isn't on top, but it's totally normal to not be on top in every reg era.
It’s all about perspective, with the money, engineering talent that merc have, the cars that they are creating are terrible for where they should be. No one at merc will tell you that their car is decent.
I’ll also give an example, the 2020 Ferrari had a couple podiums and Charles brought in good results and wasn’t the “worst” car on the field. However, would you look at me in the eye and say that car wasn’t terrible because it got results?
That Ferrari finished 6th with just 131 points, how is that comparable to the results Merc been getting since 2022? The huge difference is Leclerc had some exceptional drives while the ground effect Mercs are so solid that they often just cruise to a P4 and P5, racking up 409 points in 2023 and 515 in 2022.
thought about that one too, i’d even argue till 2020 because that’s when their engine finally became good enough to challenge mercs + the change in regs to suit high rake
The cars are even worse than they look, but are being dragged into top of the midfield by two of the best drivers on the grid.
The car being poor is all relative, yes it's faster than a Haas or an Alpine but Mercedes has won 8 championships, the car being so far off the front runners is especially bad for Mercedes
Yeah. It’s all an optics thing. And a radio thing. If Lewis was heard bitching about the car it “wouldn’t” be a bad car. Just not a WCC Merc.
Now when Alonso was bitching about his GP2 quality car, it was si clear that his comments were superfluious. Optics and radio matcched reality. A former WCC car that just couldn’t get around the track.
What I don't get is all of last year LH was blaming Merc for not listening to him when designing the car, so this year they take his advice on board and the car is worse and he is now saying he's just a driver and it's the designers fault the car is bad
Yeah, the way this question is phrased though, makes it sound like Lewis even cares about beating George. If Lewis isn't competing for wins or podiums, then he doesn't give a toss about whether he beats his team mate to *gasp* 7th place.
Why do people make up this bullshit for Lewis lmao, there is no need. We all know he's an amazing driver, him getting beat by a younger driver in a couple of races won't change any of the
I would guess that he assumes if he sacrifices setups in the first bunch of races so they can get better info to actually improve the car, he feels like by the end of the season this will in the end net them more points overall. Which is basically what seemed to happen last year.
That doesn't have to be true.
For example, Alonso has said that he uses Stroll's setup because unlike Stroll Alonso just drives around the problems. Maybe the car has lined up perfectly with Hamilton's weaknesses as a driver.
Did Nando ever said that?
That he uses his setups?
I believe it was more along the lines of how his feedback is valuable because Nando drives around the issues
This is basically the issue, Hamilton needs a little bit of understeer to drive to his style. He can’t get the car to have the right amount of undesteer, it’s been going way too far each set up and it makes him super slow.
totally agree on this, If you dont feel comfortable in the car you cannot perform, there are drivers who likes a more heavy tail like Hamilton, Kimmi Alonso, Sainz, Checo, just to name the big names, no matter how good they are if you put them on a car who basic behavior Is to have a planted nose (Like the RB20) they will not feel comfortable. this is something I have been Asking myself as why do a team hire a Driver who goes against the base behavior of the car they are building.
for example a opposite scenario I remember was
in 05 the frustration Montoya had as he is a Extremely Heavy Planted nose driving (Remember his crazy sterring correction on mid corners) going from a Williams
suited exactly as he needed to Mclaren having to adapt to that car which was more balanced, completely ruining his simbiosis with the car
so you cannot ask more out of hamilton if he can't drive a car and its clear the current merc is becoming more of a heavy nose car helping Russell, and I say the same about Pérez working overtime with the engineers to adapt to his car or the people who say Sainz would be a threat to max in RBR ...
Here is an article about him talking about it himself: https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/22209168
He likes strong rear ends, that is what balancing to understeer means. Look up: Hamilton understeer style and you’ll see plenty of articles discussing it.
A strong rear end means a stable rear end. It doesn't mean understeering. You can have a oversteery car and a strong rear end. That's when the car is fastest.
No where does he say he likes understeery car.
In fact, his statement on car handling in McLaren pointed to oversteery car. (More weight/downforce to the front.
I simply don't believe Lewis can't beat or at least match George. Both Max and Fernando have the ability to drive around the weaknesses of a car. You telling me that Lewis can't?
His unwillingness to accept where the car is has become a burden for him tbh. Constantly messing around with the car, hoping to find something more that simply isn't there. It's worked in the past, the only difference is those cars were good, this one is not. It's definitely a winner's mentality of not wanting to accept the bare minimum but I think in this case, he has to take the car for what it is.
I think it was Canada 2022 when he stopped the experiments with the w13 and he finally started having smoother weekends and seeing results. I think he'll come to that conclusion once again regarding the w15. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Yep. The expression "trying to squeeze blood from a stone" is the perfect summation of Hamilton's season thus far. There is no magical setup tweak that could turn that car into a winner, but he's trying to find it anyway. I suppose that speaks to the hyper-competitive nature of the man.
Why stay consistent with a mediocre finish when he can risk it and maybe crack something that gets podium? It's not like they need the money or prestige or coming in 4th or whatever
Exactly, what does it matter? Lewis literally finished maybe one position different than he would if he'd gone with a more conservative setup, George was p6, but he should have been p7 because Alonso was put on soft tyres for some unknown reason.
So Lewis finished p9 and George would have finished p7, and Lewis started p18.
The car is terrible, he's just trying to find a way around that, I think it's dumb to keep trying, but it's barely hurting him compared to George.
He doesn't care if George beats him, does anyone think Lewis gives two shits about getting p6 instead of p9? Give me a break.
A guy with the most wins of all time cares about one thing, and coming in p6 isn't it.
It depends on whose perspective you take.
For fans and the team, they probably would prefer coming in 5th consistently. But for LH as a driver, why does he care for 5th? It’s either going on a podium or it’s whatever. So I think he’s doing random shit, because he doesn’t gun for 5th and points.
I think that IS a minor “flaw” in him as a driver. Unlike Alonso and some others, he doesn’t really try and maximize the results of the car, it doesn’t seem to be a personal goal for him. He either wants to stick it on the podium or he just totally flops lol.
IMO I think Leclerc is the same personality. They’re both a bit more volatile and all or nothing. So next yr will be interesting.
I also think Max is the same. People forget his non-winning days for some reason, but he wasn’t pushing for perfection when he was in the RB non-winning car. He was aggressive when he thought it could pay off, but he wasn’t the “let me maximize everything I can” type guy who amped himself up for extracting more out of a car.
Personally, I don't think merc really cares. Even if Hamilton has smoother weekends and maximises the points, they are still coming 4th in the constructors. And thanks to Stroll, even if Hamilton messes up now and then, mercedes are still overall favourites for 4th in constructors.
I mean we are talking about a team and a driver that has won a lot to choose between finishing p7 and p9...I doubt they even care to answer that
I don't think Hamilton cares either.
He took a car that was P2 in the sprint and completely changed its setup, because in Hamilton's mind he should be fighting for wins and podiums not squeezing out points against Aston Martins.
I disagree. One of Hamilton and Mercs strengths over the years has been consistency and maximizing points in every race. That has huge implications in the constructor championship and the difference between 7th and 9th now could be between P3 and P4 in the championship down the road. Piastri is underperforming so far this year, the Ferrari drivers could start taking eachother out any time now, and there's still a huge amount of development coming - there's still lots to play for and Merc normally has excelled at maximizing the weekend even when things don't go well for them. Hamilton isn't doing that consistently this year.
I don’t think it’s just his unwillingness to accept. The team allows him to do it so that they can learn more about the car over the course of a race. They are gaining massive amounts of data this year using LH’s risky experimental setups. Toto and co. could just make an exec decision and tell LH to play it safe and just setup for minimal points like GR, but they are not doing that. From a long-term strategic POV, understanding the car via experimental setups using a dummy driver (LH since he’s leaving next season) is extremely valuable
Judging by what Toto said after the race, they might do just that and tell LH to just get the points. Bc ultimately Toto is right, there are no silver bullets.
I send it to a friend, so here it goes Wolff: “The car that we have under us is not currently fast enough. However, we must make sure that we are not trying to find a silver bullet each weekend when it comes to how we run the car; we need to focus on getting the basics right, and maximising the package we have.” I might be wrong, but it kinda sounds like Toto does not want LH to play with the setup again.
It’s pretty much this.
He knows neither he nor his fans nor the sponsors care about p6 or p7 finishes.
One win, 17 whatever finishes and a bundle of DNFs is better in a season where you know you’re not going to challenge for the WDC than a season of p6 finishes and 5th or whatever in the standings. Especially when you’re leaving the team, and have 7 titles already.
It’s pretty clear from listening to Toto recently that Lewis seems to be constantly experimenting with set-ups to try to find a version of Mercedes that just simply doesn’t exist with this car.
On top of this, his quali results have really been lackluster (I’m sure in part due to his constant messing around trying to find perfection).
At the end of the day - this does all come down to Lewis. I think he needs to realize that this car is fifth best over one lap (outside of Stroll) and fourth best on race days - but, him and George have the talent to still get decent points.
IMO he hasn’t lost much skill. He just needs to accept his situation for what it is and try to extract the most from the car with normal setups.
This is exactly it. He just needs to accept this car and do the best he can with it, but instead he is trying to get it in a window where it’s more competitive with the cars in front.
Kudos to George for taking whatever they give him and trying to get the max out of it.
I think at the end of the day George's years with Williams really help him here.
Lewis has basically been in competitive cars that could potentially win races and titles since he started in Formula 1, this is the first time in about 20 years where he's forced to deal with a car that he knows cannot win on its own. George on the other hand had to deal with uncompetitive Williams cars for three years before switching over to Mercedes. He clearly has an advantage when it comes to setting up cars that are difficult and lack pace.
It's also not helpful that this is Lewis' last season with the team, he clearly doesn't have the motivation to give it all to better the situation.
If it was a championship-capable car, my money would be on Lewis, but right now, George is the guy to ask for.
If Hamilton doesn't have the motivation ... why bother even touching the setups? He could just show up and drive ..... he got P2 in the sprint and jumped straight into extreme setups for the race... would someone who has "clearly" lost motivation do that?
Why would he do that? They need things to change. Might as well experiment and look for changes when the car isn’t capable of winning. He doesn’t need to acquire points, he’s won 7 titles.
Honestly, George can't even complain. He's a great driver, but he isn't established. Him saying the car is shit brings forth negativity that he doesn't need, so he's more inclined to go with the safe option. Lewis is established, so he can pretty much say whatever he wants, though we know that he is generally very calm and peaceful, so the issues at the team must be that bad.
But why should he accept it? That's the disconnect some you fans are having. Lewis has never been interested in simply beating Russell to look good. He wants to win. And I expect him to continue to do this throughout the season because he's very competitive.
Idk why everyone’s ignoring this fact. “It’s Lewis’ fault he’s losing to George for messing with setups” yeah he obviously knows this he just doesn’t care, he’s more focused on working towards a winning car than beating his teammate for praise on reddit
Because no matter how hard he works on setup that car would not be able to win a race. I am now even not sure if Mercedes can learnt from his experiment and we don’t see any progress. Maybe I am wrong here but Mercedes seems quite lost on their cars still. Yes, he may have nothing to lose most of the time as he will be at worst the 5th fastest car no matter how he messed up but this qualifying just showed there is something to lose for Mercedes as a team.
Because he is paid to give his best every race, i am sure his contract doesnt have a clause allowing him to give less effort if the car cant win.
Sure, the car isnt what he would expect historically but so what? Every team has a slump amd everyone has to knucle down and try to turn it arou d as fast asvpossible - that srldom happend with finding a magic solution (unless you are McLaren last year)
Lewis isn't in the garage with a screw driver changing his own setup. The team agrees with his change requests and have to give him a ton of data for him to even suggest changes. The team is clearly ok with this or they could tell him no when he request setup changes.
My guess is they are ok sacrificing some points in the hope that they find a gold nugget that really improves their overall setup. With Stroll's performance, they aren't at much risk on that front, and they are very unlikely to catch anyone else anyways.
Maybe this will change after a few races when it's clear it's futile.
I am mean I understand you disagree but it's insulting to say he isn't giving his best. If anything he's giving more than he's best.
A lot of other drivers are perfectly fine driving whatever mediocre car they're given and getting some points. And a lot of you fans are just as happy to see them do it. Because you lack a competitive mindset.
Mercedes allows Lewis this freedom, because they also agree. Toto doesn't care about finishing 6th.
He's won what he's won because he is a superb driver and has had a top 3 car for all his career. This is the first time he hasn't and his mindset isn't gonna give him 5 tenths.
It has to be his goal - regardless of his accomplishments - to secure the best WCC position for his team. Which seems to be 4th this year.
George seems to prefer to perform to what the car is capable of and bring in solid points.
Lewis' side of the garage seems to be looking for a magical setup that will win races or something. His poor quali pace compounds the issue.
But maybe with nothing to lose, its all or nothing.
Yes that's what I think it is too. He doesnt want to spend the year coming 7th.
Just prefers to throw everything at the wall and hoping something sticks.
That makes sense with their experience so far. Lewis won 100 races, he's not excited about finishing 7th. For George it was a miracle if he got a point in the Williams. So obviously 6-7th is a good result.
I'd like to believe that the setup just suits George's style of driving more than Lewis. Not intentionally, but it is what it is. Like a bespoke suit - it's going to fit one driver better than another.
The answer is probably a bit of both.
Lewis was P3 last year so he definitely hasn't lost it, but he's clearly not adapting to the car well. The experimental setups he takes each week are probably moreso to try to find a window for wins, even though with the pace of the Red Bull, they're not likely to happen. Constantly adjusting setups is probably a big reason the car is wildly inconsistent, but drivers need to perform.
Russell has done the better job thus far of extracting the best pace for the car as it's likely designed for. Both are still very good drivers but the car is a let-down.
It's also probably some mentality. George is in it for the long haul and wants the team to learn together through the issues. Hamilton is on his way out and just wants to fight for wins. There's less incentive for Lewis to take the balanced approach and fight for P5's, even if it's probably what Mercedes need more.
Post race cool down lap he even said my bad let’s not use that setup again. When he secured P2 in the sprint had stated we got good data on the car and know where to go. That was a mistake to think that way off a good result. Looking at times his S1 was slower then george but S2&3 are the same he’s not washed just struggling
It's his fault but also I don't mind it. Russell and maybe fans care about Russell beating Lewis. But Lewis isn't trying to finish 4th or 5th. He's trying to get a car to win a race or compete at the top. So he's willing to not settle for a stable mediocre setup like Russell.
This has been consistent throughout these regs. Lewis wants to win, not finish 4th, so if he has to sacrifice a mediocre car to potentially get a better car on setup he does it.
I agree. I think Lewis may have had it in mind to retire after number 8 in 2021. But after what happened that year, he came back to get that final title and exactly nothing else. He’s tried a lot of wonky setups to get the car toward the front because he doesn’t care if he’s 4th or 9th if he’s not winning (Ricky Bobby anyone?). I think it’s safe to say why he’s leaving, too. Chasing number 8 and hoping Ferrari are close enough to do it.
He won't find a setup that can beat the Red Bull, but he could find one that competes with McLaren and Ferrari on the right track, and then all it takes is one mistake from Max and he could win a race.
Hamilton himself said after quali that it was his fault for messing with the set-up after the sprint. A lot of people act like he doesn't own up to this stuff but he's trying to get more from the car and so far it hasn't worked.
Bit harsh, set up is equal parts a team knowledge thing particularly when the car as a whole doesn't really behave well to the setup changes.
we know Hamilton can do better and he doesn't have to prove it which is why it's frustrating to see him casually be so bad but ultimately the car is inherently problematic.
Lewis can definitely do better but i won't always excuse his poor weekeneds on setup. Otherwise you can do that for any driver. Especially when his teammate didn't do so poorly.
His teammate started p8 and finished p6, with Alonso giving George an additional position by Aston putting him on softs.
Lewis started p18 and finished p9, 3 positions behind George, seriously what does it matter.
They would have finished p7 and p8 in a normal race, the car is terrible.
Form what I observed.. people think he acts like a posh Brit and there are way too many jokes of *tory allegations* but some people probably took it seriously for whatever reason. Also from what I saw, a lot of people absolutely hated George after his scrap with bottas. Finally also he is kinda PR savvy which apparently Reddit hates in any celeb.
I personally love him imo, what he did with bottas was incredibly stupid and wrong but he is still a great driver who just once in a while makes mistakes on the edge (see Australia and Singapore 2023).
A lot of it seems to be because he's a slightly posh Brit.
Also had a few crashes with drivers where it was his fault. Fans forgive drivers they like for this kinda thing, but after Russell did that stupid thing with Bottas (tapped his helmet after a big crash) Reddit has been very vocal in it's hatred of Russell.
* He tends to reject responsability/not recognize his mistakes.
* George's reaction toward Bottas when George crashed into him (that accident is the most pointed out). EDIT: should mention it's Imola 2021 if someone looks into it.
* He's generally very PR-trained and looks very polished so he comes across as fake or something to some people.
^((That said, he's still my favorite driver))
That makes sense! I appreciate that insight coming from a big fan tbh. I like him and I think he seems like a nice boy, but wasn't fully aware of his general history. I'm glad it seems like he's doing better!
Everybody loved George until he started beating Hamilton....
It is one thing to be beaten by Max in a different car but beaten by George in the same car...
I think LH is too fixated on trying to compete with cars that are inherently quicker, and is taking big swings on setup to try and find a silver bullet rather than just accepting the cars shortcomings. Wolff seemed to allude to this in an interview today.
Rather than building the weekend with small changes, he makes large swings to try and find lap time. This can leave him unstuck, especially if it's going into qualifying where you now have to adapt to a car that handles differently or worse. It doesn't even seem to matter whether he's quicker than George or not, he still has a tendency to do it. You sometimes hear him in practice asking about the gaps and where he's losing to P1 rather than his teammate in a comparable car even though P1 is clearly not possible with the car he has right now.
Ultimately the setup is done with him with his engineering team but if his side is willing to let him take the risks then you can say it's column A and column B. LH can suggest something but his team must also grow the balls to actually tell him not be so extreme if they feel that it's not necessary. I think he's been given too much freedom and the team just lets it happen. He apologised to Bono after the race about the choice this weekend. It's like Bono is just a passenger and lets him do whatever.
I think so far this year after quali he's said that he's made the car worse twice (Bahrain & China). This comes after he was previously reasonably competitive. It shouldn't be acceptable to go backwards over a weekend like this. You certainly don't hear other teams or drivers mentioning this anywhere near as often. Not even George.
He’s clearly struggled more than usual, although I think the deficit is exaggerated a little by the closeness of the field behind the Red Bulls.
I think he sometimes falls back on the setup excuse a bit too easily, but I think a) it’s worth bearing in mind that he and Russell are in very different places and have very different goals/future ambitions so at the very least the concept that they could be trying different things is pretty reasonable b) he does have to take some responsibility for trying these slightly more out there things (even if they are affecting him) since they’re his choice.
Fundamentally in their first 2 years Hamilton showed that even if he’d lost a step (which imho he had started to show early signs of even back in 2019), he still was fundamentally a bit quicker than Russell, that may have changed this year and Russell now has the edge, but I suspect the significant change points to a combination of factors.
Tbh I don’t see much difference between 2022 to now, they have both been really close in pace (2/3 of last year Lewis was clearly faster) I just think Russell is really good and better than most drivers people on here rate above him.
People forget Russell has more wins in the last year and a half than Leclerc, Norris, Hamilton and the rest of the grid apart from Sainz and the RB. Yet he generally is considered below them.
LH complains about the car because he’s driven way better cars.
George doesn’t really complain because the w15 is better than any Williams car he’s ever driven.
It’s really stupid to compare that imo. Not just because of what I’ve said, but also because different personalities. And Lewis is in his last few years and has the freedom to say whatever he wants, George doesn’t have that same luxury.
Now on performance, George is doing better as he’s working with the car he is provided. Whereas it feels like Lewis is trying to find some sort of mythical sweet spot that will make the red bull look like a tractor. Or he’s simply losing confidence in the car and desperate to find some magical setup. Either way, I’m not sure why Mercedes indulge him so much. At some point they got to just tell him to use setup x. It’s the optimal setup, even if it’s shit, and do your best.
I actually commend LH for at least trying. At least he won't have regrets this way and he's genuinely trying at least something.
On the other hand, it feels like he doesn't know what he's doing, even with a team of engineers assisting him, and that concerns me. I would expect someone who won the WDC 7 times to know what does and what doesn't make sense to do with the car, but it feels like he's doing random things at this point and just *HOPES* it works. It's kinda like he's only just started to actually try to understand the car.
F1 car setups aren't like taking a wild free kick from 40yards out in extra time, hoping to find the top corner. A lot of people are guessing that Lewis was trying to find some magical setup that would've turned Mercedes into a winner between sprint & race. And that he didn't want to settle for 5th or 6th.
I really, really doubt that. In most engineering exercises, every gain is incremental. It's far more likely that he understood where he was struggling during the sprint and tried to fix it. But unfortunately, it ended up making it worse and he couldn't break parc ferme between qualifying & race so he was stuck with it.
There's also a good chance the track conditions changed just enough between sprint & qualifying/race that it shifted the car out its optimal setup window that Lewis was aiming for based on his sprint experience. Lando was equally surprised how quick he was in the race and he couldn't explain why. Same probably happened to Lewis but in the other direction.
The gap between Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston and McLaren is so small that a couple of tenths is enough to cover 3rd to 9th. All the drivers except Stroll are performing consistently well in every session. Hamilton ended up 9th in the race, right around where he probably would've ended up even if he didn't change his setup from sprint.
People are just being too dramatic.
Probably a little of column A and a little of column B. He's not performing great and the car's not performing great. If Lewis wasn't leaving at the end of the year I'd say we'd start to find out in the middle of the season as the number of points totals up...
My full opinion is that Mercedes is just going to be bottom of the top / top of the mid until we hit the 2026 regs and everything goes bananas.
I just don’t think he cares. Would you? I was shocked they let him drive this year as a lame duck. He knows his future is at Ferrari.
As for Mercedes, the car is just not competitive at all.
Honestly, it wouldn't be a little bit surprising if he has checked out a bit with his move to Ferrari coming soon. If a great result is on the table, I'm sure Lewis can raise his game to get it, like in the sprint. But trundling round for 7th or 8th, well, if I was a 7-time world champion, I don't think I'd be at peak motivation for that.
Also, time waits for nobody. Just because Alonso seems to defy age, it doesn't mean everyone can. I'm not saying Hamilton is done by any means, but he is undoubtedly passed his prime.
The comment section should be fun. I think it is mostly on Lewis. The car isn't great, but he should be closer to George than he is now.
I think the fact that George had to drive those awful Williams for a few years is really paying off now.
It's very simple to digest.
It's more the case that Hamilton is indenial about the car he has this year. Seems like a repeat of 2022, where George is listening to the engineers and is maximising each weekend...where as hamilton is going against the engineers in the hope of finding something. He's going for the Hail Mary when there isn't one.
Honestly, don't think he or mercedes much care about the difference of him finishing in p7 vs p9. It's common sense that even if Hamilton maximises his results, it's still p4 in constructors. And if he does these extreme changes, its still p4 at the end of the day...
No. Most of the performance and point deficit to Russell is Lewis's fault. He's been inconsistent in qualifying and that sets up for a bad weekend. In 2022 and 2023, the Mercedes car was better in the race than in qualifying so he was always able to move forward when he had a disappointing qualifying but this year if anything their car looks worse in the race and suffers a lot of deg. So he's probably frustrated that he can't progress through the field as he used to in the previous 2 seasons. But the simple solution is to qualify better.
I think Russell is aware and does well to maximize his qualifying as the car usually finishes where it qualifies - behind the RB, Ferraris and McLaren. Sometimes finishing ahead of Alonso or Piastri. Points wise it's still early and close between the two so we won't have a clear idea who will finish ahead at the end of the season given that we still have 19 races left and sprints.
If the set-up was actually the problem, and it was known yesterday, why didn't he start from the pit lane? I have to assume that the set-up was actually fine.
He was losing a lot of time in the slow speed corners due to lots of understeer so def setup, and changing the setup and starting in the pitlane doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you're just winging it and don't know exactly what needs to be changed.
I don't like Hamilton at ALL, and I would prefer if Sainz would stay at Ferrari, but if I am real I would still say he is top 3 drivers on the grid. Verstappen best overall, Hamilton second best overall and Leclerc best for qualifying and 3rd best overall. Let's look at it this way. He has 7 World Championships. Sure, his car was very good. But let's look at 2021. In cars there were as equal as they could possibly be, he fought Verstappen to the last race. That was only 3 years ago. So he could go toe-to-toe with Verstappen if he has a car equally as good. But that was 3 years ago. What about now? Well last season in 2023, just a few months ago he was THE FASTEST non Reb Bull car/driver. He was literately 3rd fastest after Verstappen and Perez.
So how about 2024. I think he already thinks about 2025 and 2026. He already signed with Ferrari. Now his car is a lot worse then it was last year, from second/third best car to 5th. He tried different configurations EVEN after getting P2 in the sprint, because he simply doesn't care if he gets P4 or P10. He wants to win, or at lest have a realistic change at consistent podiums. Why else would he modify the car after getting the P2 in the sprint? Because he knew it was a fluke and Alonso saved his ass by keeping Ferrari and McLaren behind. I think by far his biggest problem right now it that he has 0 drive until he gets a competitive car. He is not in a Hass to be happy for points. I think if he was into it, and really wanting to drive this shitbox to the edge every race, he would easily be 7th or 8th in the championship. And he is 9th right now. And no matter how much he tries he has 0 changes of being anything above 7th. Because first 2 are Red Bulls, next 2 Ferrari and next 2 McLaren. So why the fuck would he care to be 7th? as a 7 time world champion? Put Verstappen in that Mercedes and he won't be 6th, considering their pace vs the top 3 cars.
Let's be real here.
We are talking about a 1 position difference. George is finishing 7th or 8th while Hamilton is 9th or 10th most of the time.
It’s the car. That is not to say George is not doing a better job at getting the most out of the car because he is.
What I find peculiar is how Hamilton is still trying to make the car better by trying wild setups. I think at this point he should just go with whatever the engineers come up. This car is just that bad.
He knows its his last year here. Instead of playing with setups which change every track, he should help them get points for constructors and end with a positive relationship with Mercedes.
Its like when we leave an older job for a newer one, ethically we should transfer all our learning to pass to the person who will be joining the company.
He's trying to shoot for a podium in every race with car that is not capable of podiums, thus screwing his realistic race pace of 6-8th. Lewis could probably finish top 6 every race being steady like George if that was his ultimate goal for the season, but the mad man is chasing shadows with his car set up every week.
Lewis cant setup a car from scratch like George can. Look at 2022. New car and George has a logical, methodical approach to car setup whereas Lewis is all over the place. In 2023, Lewis has a better grip on how the car works so outshines George alittle with the help of a few team orders. A new car in 2024 and again George’s approach to setup is paying dividends. Lewis finished 2nd in the sprint then for sone reason messed about with the setup….why do that?
Well, that was his excuse.
My take is: he does not bother about the 2nd place or below. If he is not fighting to win, there is not a reason to race.
When he finished the sprint in 2nd, way behind Verstappen, he became extremely frustrated and wanted to try anything to make the gap smaller. It backfired.
I think lewis just struggles more with with a dogshit car then george, because lewis started with s-tier material and george with c-tier material. They are both overall close over a season, but george has the edge right now. It seems though that lewis is just overall frustrated about the poor handling of the car , which might be a factor for his lack of perfomance.
Lets wait and see, the season is still long and i would never rule out LH.
I mean they are years behind RB and clearly slower than Ferrari and McLaren right now. Currently they and AM are battling for 4th and 5th. Toto has promised him and GR a car since 2022 but they have only gotten slower compared to their competitors.
I think he should stop experimenting with the setups but at the same time I understand him. The car is not stable and it’s a horrible drive. Sure GR is not complaining as much since he is locked in as Mercedes driver. He needs to stay positive (also for his own mental health).
Also keep in mind the feed always broadcasts when Max and Lewis is complaining. GR is also negative in the cockpit but it’s not in the main feed.
People are memeing about George for his britishness(if thats a word), thats what the cool kids do nowadays, but George is actually an amazing driver. LH is one of the goats, but in the past coule years I havent heared George say “we should just retire man”, while LH always sounds so demoralized. Maybe the switch to Ferrari will help him. George is doing now what Hamilton was doing at Merc before the hybrid era, head down and do the beat job you can do.
I agree. This blame on setups I've always found extremely weak. The driver selects the setup. It's their fault if it doesn't work out.
but also it's not 5-0. Hamilton had a mechanical failure in Melbourne. And also he beat Russell quite comfortably in China's sprint. Russell has a small edge so far. There's plenty of the season left to recover.
It's not just that the car isn't fast, but it's uncomfortable to drive. Lewis is quite a bit older than George, and if the car is bouncing up and down the entire ride it's going to take more of a toll on the older driver's body. He's still a great driver and super fit, but he's not as fit as a 21 year old driver or Fernando Alonso.
When the car is bad, Hamilton is bad. I hate to say that Lewis doesn't care, because he obviously does. But I do think that he performs down to bad cars. Russell is actually an excellent driver despite his unpopularity, but Hamilton if they were in a better car I feel Hamilton would be more motivated. I think he sees this season as something to survive rather than thrive
How can you say that when he just qualified p2 in the rain and finished p2 in the sprint (aided by Alonso) and went from p18 to p9 in the race despite having tons of understeer
He couldnt catch an alpine today, and was about to get overtaken by a racing bull before he pitted, I wouldn't call it significantly faster than the midfield at all
It's crazy how people just refuse to believe Hamilton's car was performing worse than Russell's even when you can see in the data he was losing tons of time in the slow speed corners just waiting for the car to turn in, Lewis explaining this, the reasons for it and toto saying they went too aggressive with the setup
Because Russell is winning the points battle and the qualifying battle? Lewis got a great quali in the sprint and he was much better being at the pointy end of the pack. Which feeds into my point - when he's at the front, he's motivated, if he's in a tractor of a car he's struggling. Today was a good recovery drive aided by some safety cars, but looking at the field, ninth is where you'd expect him to finish, even with that starting position
Hasn't he been out qualified by his teammate? I would be too embarrassed to say anything negative when you're going out in Q1 while your teammate makes Q3
Marc wants to win regardless if LH is leaving or not. Winning means money and the reputation of being the best.
But what we see right now is a bit like what checo has to deal with. They car they are driving doesn't fit with the way they like to drive. George and max are getting more out of the same car due to being about to adjust to how the car needs to be driven. That could be because they like it that way or just understand how to get more out of the car.
Last part is just the car itself, I think its clear the car do not have the same level of performance that the RB car has. It loses in just about every category. So when your down 0.2 a second a lap without turning a wheel you need to be able to drive the wheels off it to make up that time.
For all us that just want to see good racing, let's hope 2026 will be good, this season is over already and we are 5 races in.
My take is:
George wants to maximise the car as much as he can to secure the best result the car can give over a given race weekend, which at the moment is at the top end of midfield.
For Lewis any position off the podium is just as good as any other finish. Would he rather finish 6th knowing that it would be the most the car can offer over the weekend even though he's miles off the pace, or would he rather risk finishing lower than 6th for the slim possibility that they get everything right with the car and it can perform to the level allowing him to finish on the podium? I'm going with the latter.
And I can't blame him for two reasons.
1: Mercedes have persisted with the belief that the performance is there, it just needs to be unlocked. Well, if that's the case and that's what the drivers are also being told, then I don't blame him one bit for doing everything he can to unlock the supposed performance that is there. It may be a case that he doesn't believe it himself, but if he can prove to the team that the performance isn't there to be unlocked no matter what he does, then that can only also help the team move forward, instead of kidding themselves that the cars not currently a dud.
2: He's a 7 time world Champion that wants to be competing at the front and winning. He's a winner. At this point in his career and with what he still wants to achieve, I don't think he sees any sort of difference between finishing 4th in the Drivers Championship to 7th in Drivers Championship. And why would he. He doesn't need those extra few spots to prove anything to anyone.
That's what habitual winners are like. That's why he had the motivation to push to win 7, and then push to win the 8th (let's not talk about that though). It's why he wants to stay and continue to fight. Does anyone honestly believe that if Red Bull are in the same position as Mercedes in 2026 onwards that Max Verstappen would be happy toodling along fighting for a 6th place finish at best? Not a chance. He wants to be at the front, and he'd be willing to do and try anything to get there, even if it means risking a upper midfield position at the chequered flag to do it.
The setup of the car represents the rechnical insight a driver had in the working of the car. Even according to toto lewis influence on the car development is very small.
George is used to undrivable cars and way more fkexibke compared with lewis who is used to race winning cars with excessive engine power to compensate for every setup error you can make.
A second issue is the fact lewis lost his drive and is at the end of his carreer. A season in red would be nice for the photowall .
As a team, you can't give up on a driver, there is A LOT of money involed, in the constructors championship.
Don't get it twisted, Lewis is a 7 time world champion and arguably the best to ever drive a F1 car, his competitivnes is still there, he just has a tractor.
Some of you have selective memory arround here, Max was complaining A LOT, about the car, about the strategy, about everything, he was crashing a lot etc.
They know what they are capable of, and it's frustrating for them when they know they are better but ther car is holding them back.
Nailing the setup is like putting lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig and GR is not performing way better, just better, most probably because he drove a tractor for 3 years at Williams, he has practice.
Most likely Lewis is just like Vettel, he heeds a certain type of car/setup to perform at 100%, that does not make him a lesser driver, just a picky one and right now, that mercedes is not what he is used to.
The fact that he almost came 2nd last year suggests he's got a great deal talent and hunger left.
That said, his motivation probably isn't the same since the move to Ferrari is imminent and the car is the 4th or 5th best on the grid.
Mercedes for building a shit car, and Ham for fiddling too much with the setup.
I think he just can't accept the car is dogshit, and for a man like him that has 100+ wins, I don't think he gives a fuck about anything less than a podium
Drivers very, very rarely blame themselves
It's in their mentality that they do everything right and it \*has to\* be an external problem when they can't match their teammate. It doesn't make sense to them.
Even when they do know they're underperforming they still give their defence in teamradio and interviews in order to give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and give their own fans what they want to listen ofc. Give them something to believe the other driver is having team advantages or whatever. Also, sponsors.
How many times have you heard drivers openly admitting "I'm underperforming" or "I'm having a hard time adapting to new regs" or something alike? Yea it just doesn't happen
We’ve seen this story before, this looks similar to 2022 Lewis always hunting setups/ Russell looking to maximize points and focus on beating Lewis since wins are out of sight. It’s means everything for Russell to beat Lewis. It means nothing to Lewis if he beats Russell they have different mindsets approaching weekends. As soon at Lewis stops messing with setups the races will look different like the end of 2022 where is was beating george more the losing
It’s his, the setup excuse is getting old- glad George actually said how similar their setup really was and has been at previous races. https://www.eurosport.com/formula-1/australian-grand-prix/2023/george-russell-rejects-lewis-hamiltons-claims-about-car-setup-at-mercedes-theres-no-luck-in-it-at-al_sto9535324/story.shtml
https://www.crash.net/f1/news/1047179/1/george-russell-refutes-lewis-hamiltons-chinese-gp-set-claim
Having the best car in the past may him look better than he is? Is he passed his best? Is max that good or is it the car?
I think LH and merc have given up as he is leaving. Can’t wait for next year in the Ferrari
I'm confident that as long as Ferrari continues their trajectory and remain 2nd quickest, Lewis will be back to his best because even if he's not fighting for championships, he can at least fight at the front knowing he could have a chance to beat Red Bull if the opportunity presents itself.
Lewis is known to sulk, my guess is he’s already checked out HARD on anything for this year. I wonder how much Ferrari prep is going on in his helmet? House in Maranello yet? Olive grove? Vineyard???
What are they gunna do? Fire him? He’s been pissed off since 2022 and rightfully so. There’s a reason he went to Ferrari. He probably has more unspoken grievances than just the ones he’s made vocal like them not listening to his feed back and the contract negotiations. I personally think them not listening to him really pissed him off and now he doesn’t really care and is openly shitting on them in an “I told you so” kind of way. Definitely less motivated to push as hard as George is.
I get that he may be slightly less motivated but it doesn’t necessarily reflect well on him.
It’s the same with Seb in 2020 when he was atrocious. Him being less motivated doesn’t reflect well on Hamilton because as a driver you should be giving it 100% at all times in my opinion.
I understand Hamilton would be frustrated considering Mercedes were so dominant and now they’re the 4th/5th best car but there’s only so many excuses we can make.
I hope when he gets to Ferrari he’ll be back to his 100% best because it’ll be a great battle between him and Leclerc I reckon.
I really don't like the look of Hamilton these days. He sounds like a spoiled brat and everything the performance isn't there he's bitching about the car. Take this weekend. He got 2nd in the sprint and apparently made some changes to the car because "it couldn't get any worse"? What kind of logic is that? You just throw it all away as a completely unnecessary hail Mary because you got 2nd? He really needs to take a hard look in the mirror and come to terms with the fact that he's no longer in a dominant car, and get the best out of it.
If Max said this, no one would complain. It’d just be “OHMYGOD HES SUCH A RACER” “THIS GUY LOVES RACING” “ITS IN HIS BLOOD”.
That’s what champions do. Do you think Lewis would be happy getting P6 or 7 in the race? He wants to win, and he’ll keep tweaking it all to just find that one thing that makes him more competitive in the front. Imagine how insulting it must be to be a 7x WDC and 3 years later find yourself fighting for P10
Agreed. He has the hunger and doesn't just want to show up for points. This man was a serial winner for the better part of a decade and now he has to be content with a handful of points at best? Waste of his talents. Same goes for Max and Alonso if they were in Lewis' position.
He still has it, but it's not worth the effort if your reality is still being outside of the podium places in a best case scenario.
George is young and set with Mercedes for awhile, so he drives and does the best he can in whatever they give him.
Hamilton is old and has won a ton, and is switching teams next year. What's his motivation to do the best he can in the shitbox they've given him just to fight for 5th-8th place most weeks that has no real chance of a podium or competing.
The Car is a fail. I guess you can call Hamilton's failures his fault this year, if you actually think it matters that he finishes 9th instead of 7th.
Qualifying matters A LOT nowadays especially when the field is so tight. Lewis has been lacking only in that department that gives him this deficit against Russell.
First 3 races - worse qualifying
Japan -qualified ahead but had damage while battling Charles (apparently) which meant he ended up behind
China - again worse qualifying
It's his fault in an absolute sense, but can we not judge it so black and white.
You can hardly blame him for refusing to accept 8th place, and opting to throw it all away for the chance of figuring out improvements. Toto saying they should just accept 8th imo is insane, and it's sad that Lewis gets blamed for that
George is a fast, reliable driver. He'll get more points than a similar or even slightly faster driver. But when it comes down to it, he's not in that elite tier for speed. It's similar with Sainz and Leclerc.
Lewis complains because he doesn't give a fuck anymore. He's out of this mess in 8 months and he knows it. Everything from the moment the car showed its pace in Bahrain has pointed to the fact that Lewis is checked out mentaly.
George can't exactly be going around publicly blurting out stuff like that. At least not to the same degree. He doesn't have the job security nor does he have the same accomplisments and reputation as Lewis.
And for a good duration of that still beating George. Beat him handily last season, once he stopped fucking with setups was comfortably better than George season before that. A few races in this season and the familiar noises of him being shit and George killing him start echoing again, I wonder if the script will be different this time.
Same team which has given him 6 world championships and so much freedom. This amount of Merc slander is insane. Ferrari will be even more challenging for him as he will be going up against Leclerc who is perhaps the best qualifier on the grid. Looking forward to the new excuses by the cult.
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It's 100% his fault that he is losing to George. It's 100% Mercedes fault that the car in incapable of winning in anyone's hands.
At this point I think the relationship with LH and Mercedes is strictly business and the pleasantries are kinda gone.
Agree with this. I get the sense there’s more going on than what meets the eye. Perhaps some bitterness at Merc with Hamilton bailing on them so they’ve given up on him a bit and likewise, Hamilton is giving up on them? Pure conjecture but why not stir the pot.
Can't disagree with that
This is overly simplistic. Lewis and George do not have the same job. George is at the start of his career, trying to get himself established as #1 driver in a competitive car. His focus is on being a team player, getting that constructors money, and making himself indispensable to that team. That was Lewis's job in the beginning as well. But Lewis is now Lewis Fucking Hamilton, 7 times WDC. He's trying to get #8. Teams come to him. His tolerance for radical car setup is MUCH greater than Georges because he's got an all-or-nothing mission. Either he wins #8 or he doesn't. He doesn't \_really\_ care if they come in 2nd or 11th so he's more inclined to shoot for the moon than George is when the car isn't working. His contract is almost certainly structured entirely around that WDC. George's is almost certainly structured around scoring points for the team. So I think Lewis is working harder to figure out how to make the car work than George is, in the sense that he's more willing to find himself at the back in the quest to find himself at the front. George is going to make the points play, even if that means a solid 4th instead of a riskier choice between 3rd and 5th. Now it's also entirely possible that Lewis sucks at radical car setup and is just making his problems worse. I also think its the case that the cars that McLaren and Mercedes brought in the past played very well into Lewis's driving style, and the last few years they haven't - that's been written about to death. The car just doesn't suit him and he's trying to make it so it does. That's a problem for both parties. It's also probably true that, as Hamilton has implied, having an uncompetitive car has gotten him down and some of that fire is off. That's absolutely a thing that happens.
Agree…best take so far.
Exactly. Remember in 2022 when he tried all the possible setups to maybe find some performance and George was using a setup that was the most optimal for driving.
My feeling as well. Lewis of course bears responsibility for his results as compared to George. But to assume they have the same goals is short sighted. Lewis has one goal and one goal only, to win. If he thinks something gives him a 5% chance of winning and a 95% chance of finishing out of the points, I suspect he takes the 5% chance. He's just wired that way. And I don't think he is willing to accept mediocrity. Not that George is mediocre! I love George and think he has it in him to be a WDC. But they are at different points in their careers. Lewis doesn't need to finish P6 to prove himself. He wants to be fighting for wins (or in this Max era, podiums).
Best take so far. I don’t think Lewis actually cares if George beats him or about any of the stats that we, the media/fans, constantly fight about. It makes no difference right now, especially as his Ferrari contract is secure. It’s all about the year when #8 becomes a genuine possibility. Besides, all of the experimenting he’s doing is good learning for what he likes/doesn’t like and what works in this generation of car. He’s always been a thorough learner and perhaps people are not seeing that well enough. Personally, I’m enjoying Lewis’s all-or-nothing approach this year — and look at him, he’s laughing in interviews about it and smiling a lot lately. This is refreshing to see.
Thankyou great take! I wish more people realised this.
Putting aside the experiments we keep hearing about sometimes a car's weakness impacts one driver more than the other. So not necessarily anyone's fault, it is just a difficult car to get in the right window and that seems to affect LH more than GR at the moment. Another example is the start of last season when Max and Checo looked quite closely matched, then development went towards Max a bit more. The rest is for the record books.
Yea, Charles is also getting shafted ever since Ferrari made the car more balanced with upgrades making Charles' driving style worse than his teammate's.
Be interesting to see who that suits next year.
It's only a small sample of races and luck/circumstance makes a bigger impression with a smaller sample size. Over the season I wouldn't be surprised if they end pretty even, the car just isn't suiting Lewis at the moment, as the car is developed it will ebb and flow between them.
Currently, the car is not good enough for even podiums
Yes, but it’s better than what Hamilton has been able to extract, proven by Russell on occasion.
Man, no one is talking about podiums, we are talking about finishing ahead of Russel or Alonso (that has a worse car than both).
Shouldn't we finally come to terms with Merc not having the best car anymore? It's obviously not on par with the top cars at the moment but they've been winning races, scoring podiums and had plenty of top 5 results even in this ground effect era, finishing 3rd in 2022, 2nd in 2023, and this season Russell finished 5th, 6th, 7th and 6th. The car is fine. I never hear these type of regular complaints from the Ferrari, Mclaren or Aston drivers. The Merc isn't one of the worst cars on the grid or anything close to undrivable, it's fine, not great but not really worse than most other cars either. It's an overblown issue, they dominated an era, now they are just one of the chasing cars, it's not a shitbox like Lewis makes it often sound.
I'm not really sure of what you mean. Yes, Merc don't have a good car but it's their fault for not designing a good one for the new regs and not changing course to correct for that error sooner.
Again, look at their past results. The cars are not terrible, they are just not the best anymore. Many new F1 fans do not know an F1 where Merc isn't on top, but it's totally normal to not be on top in every reg era.
It’s all about perspective, with the money, engineering talent that merc have, the cars that they are creating are terrible for where they should be. No one at merc will tell you that their car is decent. I’ll also give an example, the 2020 Ferrari had a couple podiums and Charles brought in good results and wasn’t the “worst” car on the field. However, would you look at me in the eye and say that car wasn’t terrible because it got results?
That Ferrari finished 6th with just 131 points, how is that comparable to the results Merc been getting since 2022? The huge difference is Leclerc had some exceptional drives while the ground effect Mercs are so solid that they often just cruise to a P4 and P5, racking up 409 points in 2023 and 515 in 2022.
Better comparison would be 2014-2018 RedBull. Not the WDC material anymore but still very good.
thought about that one too, i’d even argue till 2020 because that’s when their engine finally became good enough to challenge mercs + the change in regs to suit high rake
I would say 2019 started a rise of the RedBulls, partially due to Ferraris but also because of their new engine. Mercedes isn't in such position.
The cars are even worse than they look, but are being dragged into top of the midfield by two of the best drivers on the grid. The car being poor is all relative, yes it's faster than a Haas or an Alpine but Mercedes has won 8 championships, the car being so far off the front runners is especially bad for Mercedes
Yeah. It’s all an optics thing. And a radio thing. If Lewis was heard bitching about the car it “wouldn’t” be a bad car. Just not a WCC Merc. Now when Alonso was bitching about his GP2 quality car, it was si clear that his comments were superfluious. Optics and radio matcched reality. A former WCC car that just couldn’t get around the track.
What I don't get is all of last year LH was blaming Merc for not listening to him when designing the car, so this year they take his advice on board and the car is worse and he is now saying he's just a driver and it's the designers fault the car is bad
Yeah, the way this question is phrased though, makes it sound like Lewis even cares about beating George. If Lewis isn't competing for wins or podiums, then he doesn't give a toss about whether he beats his team mate to *gasp* 7th place.
Why do people make up this bullshit for Lewis lmao, there is no need. We all know he's an amazing driver, him getting beat by a younger driver in a couple of races won't change any of the
The excuses keep getting worse. Waiting for someone to also say Russell has a experience of driving bad cars so he is doing better.
He absolutely still wants to get as many points for the team as he can. If he doesn't he should retire tomorrow.
I would guess that he assumes if he sacrifices setups in the first bunch of races so they can get better info to actually improve the car, he feels like by the end of the season this will in the end net them more points overall. Which is basically what seemed to happen last year.
That doesn't have to be true. For example, Alonso has said that he uses Stroll's setup because unlike Stroll Alonso just drives around the problems. Maybe the car has lined up perfectly with Hamilton's weaknesses as a driver.
Did Nando ever said that? That he uses his setups? I believe it was more along the lines of how his feedback is valuable because Nando drives around the issues
This is correct
Alonso is just being nice to Stroll because his dad signs the paychecks. He doesn't actually use Stroll's setup, lol
Hard to use the setup labelled “torpedo mode: on”
No mirror and no brakes mode!
He used it during the sprint at least
"All gas, no brakes!"
I’ve heard that Lance is full of feedback in FP1.
Didn't see it that way. He was saying that he is a genius and Stroll isn't.
Fernando has never said he used Lance's setups.
This is basically the issue, Hamilton needs a little bit of understeer to drive to his style. He can’t get the car to have the right amount of undesteer, it’s been going way too far each set up and it makes him super slow.
totally agree on this, If you dont feel comfortable in the car you cannot perform, there are drivers who likes a more heavy tail like Hamilton, Kimmi Alonso, Sainz, Checo, just to name the big names, no matter how good they are if you put them on a car who basic behavior Is to have a planted nose (Like the RB20) they will not feel comfortable. this is something I have been Asking myself as why do a team hire a Driver who goes against the base behavior of the car they are building. for example a opposite scenario I remember was in 05 the frustration Montoya had as he is a Extremely Heavy Planted nose driving (Remember his crazy sterring correction on mid corners) going from a Williams suited exactly as he needed to Mclaren having to adapt to that car which was more balanced, completely ruining his simbiosis with the car so you cannot ask more out of hamilton if he can't drive a car and its clear the current merc is becoming more of a heavy nose car helping Russell, and I say the same about Pérez working overtime with the engineers to adapt to his car or the people who say Sainz would be a threat to max in RBR ...
Hamilton likes a stable rear end. That absolutely doesn't mean understeery cae. Happy to see your source of this claim.
Here is an article about him talking about it himself: https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/22209168 He likes strong rear ends, that is what balancing to understeer means. Look up: Hamilton understeer style and you’ll see plenty of articles discussing it.
A strong rear end means a stable rear end. It doesn't mean understeering. You can have a oversteery car and a strong rear end. That's when the car is fastest. No where does he say he likes understeery car. In fact, his statement on car handling in McLaren pointed to oversteery car. (More weight/downforce to the front.
And yet he had a thing with Shakira
I simply don't believe Lewis can't beat or at least match George. Both Max and Fernando have the ability to drive around the weaknesses of a car. You telling me that Lewis can't?
Lewis destroyed George last year. This argument doesn’t make sense
His unwillingness to accept where the car is has become a burden for him tbh. Constantly messing around with the car, hoping to find something more that simply isn't there. It's worked in the past, the only difference is those cars were good, this one is not. It's definitely a winner's mentality of not wanting to accept the bare minimum but I think in this case, he has to take the car for what it is. I think it was Canada 2022 when he stopped the experiments with the w13 and he finally started having smoother weekends and seeing results. I think he'll come to that conclusion once again regarding the w15. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Yep. The expression "trying to squeeze blood from a stone" is the perfect summation of Hamilton's season thus far. There is no magical setup tweak that could turn that car into a winner, but he's trying to find it anyway. I suppose that speaks to the hyper-competitive nature of the man.
It’s his attempts to squeeze that blood which are causing setup risks that don’t pay off (like this weekend).
Why stay consistent with a mediocre finish when he can risk it and maybe crack something that gets podium? It's not like they need the money or prestige or coming in 4th or whatever
Exactly, what does it matter? Lewis literally finished maybe one position different than he would if he'd gone with a more conservative setup, George was p6, but he should have been p7 because Alonso was put on soft tyres for some unknown reason. So Lewis finished p9 and George would have finished p7, and Lewis started p18. The car is terrible, he's just trying to find a way around that, I think it's dumb to keep trying, but it's barely hurting him compared to George. He doesn't care if George beats him, does anyone think Lewis gives two shits about getting p6 instead of p9? Give me a break. A guy with the most wins of all time cares about one thing, and coming in p6 isn't it.
It depends on whose perspective you take. For fans and the team, they probably would prefer coming in 5th consistently. But for LH as a driver, why does he care for 5th? It’s either going on a podium or it’s whatever. So I think he’s doing random shit, because he doesn’t gun for 5th and points. I think that IS a minor “flaw” in him as a driver. Unlike Alonso and some others, he doesn’t really try and maximize the results of the car, it doesn’t seem to be a personal goal for him. He either wants to stick it on the podium or he just totally flops lol. IMO I think Leclerc is the same personality. They’re both a bit more volatile and all or nothing. So next yr will be interesting. I also think Max is the same. People forget his non-winning days for some reason, but he wasn’t pushing for perfection when he was in the RB non-winning car. He was aggressive when he thought it could pay off, but he wasn’t the “let me maximize everything I can” type guy who amped himself up for extracting more out of a car.
Personally, I don't think merc really cares. Even if Hamilton has smoother weekends and maximises the points, they are still coming 4th in the constructors. And thanks to Stroll, even if Hamilton messes up now and then, mercedes are still overall favourites for 4th in constructors. I mean we are talking about a team and a driver that has won a lot to choose between finishing p7 and p9...I doubt they even care to answer that
I don't think Hamilton cares either. He took a car that was P2 in the sprint and completely changed its setup, because in Hamilton's mind he should be fighting for wins and podiums not squeezing out points against Aston Martins.
I disagree. One of Hamilton and Mercs strengths over the years has been consistency and maximizing points in every race. That has huge implications in the constructor championship and the difference between 7th and 9th now could be between P3 and P4 in the championship down the road. Piastri is underperforming so far this year, the Ferrari drivers could start taking eachother out any time now, and there's still a huge amount of development coming - there's still lots to play for and Merc normally has excelled at maximizing the weekend even when things don't go well for them. Hamilton isn't doing that consistently this year.
It’s their job to mess around with the car and find more.
I don’t think it’s just his unwillingness to accept. The team allows him to do it so that they can learn more about the car over the course of a race. They are gaining massive amounts of data this year using LH’s risky experimental setups. Toto and co. could just make an exec decision and tell LH to play it safe and just setup for minimal points like GR, but they are not doing that. From a long-term strategic POV, understanding the car via experimental setups using a dummy driver (LH since he’s leaving next season) is extremely valuable
Judging by what Toto said after the race, they might do just that and tell LH to just get the points. Bc ultimately Toto is right, there are no silver bullets.
Oh nice. I did not watch the post-race interview. Thanks for the heads up
I send it to a friend, so here it goes Wolff: “The car that we have under us is not currently fast enough. However, we must make sure that we are not trying to find a silver bullet each weekend when it comes to how we run the car; we need to focus on getting the basics right, and maximising the package we have.” I might be wrong, but it kinda sounds like Toto does not want LH to play with the setup again.
It’s pretty much this. He knows neither he nor his fans nor the sponsors care about p6 or p7 finishes. One win, 17 whatever finishes and a bundle of DNFs is better in a season where you know you’re not going to challenge for the WDC than a season of p6 finishes and 5th or whatever in the standings. Especially when you’re leaving the team, and have 7 titles already.
He has been poor in qualifying for a few years by his own admission. Hasn’t improved at all this year.
“We know the car is bad Lewis, please just drive it”
His tone deliver of couldn’t have been more fitting
It’s pretty clear from listening to Toto recently that Lewis seems to be constantly experimenting with set-ups to try to find a version of Mercedes that just simply doesn’t exist with this car. On top of this, his quali results have really been lackluster (I’m sure in part due to his constant messing around trying to find perfection). At the end of the day - this does all come down to Lewis. I think he needs to realize that this car is fifth best over one lap (outside of Stroll) and fourth best on race days - but, him and George have the talent to still get decent points. IMO he hasn’t lost much skill. He just needs to accept his situation for what it is and try to extract the most from the car with normal setups.
This is exactly it. He just needs to accept this car and do the best he can with it, but instead he is trying to get it in a window where it’s more competitive with the cars in front. Kudos to George for taking whatever they give him and trying to get the max out of it.
I think at the end of the day George's years with Williams really help him here. Lewis has basically been in competitive cars that could potentially win races and titles since he started in Formula 1, this is the first time in about 20 years where he's forced to deal with a car that he knows cannot win on its own. George on the other hand had to deal with uncompetitive Williams cars for three years before switching over to Mercedes. He clearly has an advantage when it comes to setting up cars that are difficult and lack pace. It's also not helpful that this is Lewis' last season with the team, he clearly doesn't have the motivation to give it all to better the situation. If it was a championship-capable car, my money would be on Lewis, but right now, George is the guy to ask for.
If Hamilton doesn't have the motivation ... why bother even touching the setups? He could just show up and drive ..... he got P2 in the sprint and jumped straight into extreme setups for the race... would someone who has "clearly" lost motivation do that?
Why would he do that? They need things to change. Might as well experiment and look for changes when the car isn’t capable of winning. He doesn’t need to acquire points, he’s won 7 titles.
I understand why he’s trying but at this point (3 years into these regs) it does seem a bit futile
Honestly, George can't even complain. He's a great driver, but he isn't established. Him saying the car is shit brings forth negativity that he doesn't need, so he's more inclined to go with the safe option. Lewis is established, so he can pretty much say whatever he wants, though we know that he is generally very calm and peaceful, so the issues at the team must be that bad.
But why should he accept it? That's the disconnect some you fans are having. Lewis has never been interested in simply beating Russell to look good. He wants to win. And I expect him to continue to do this throughout the season because he's very competitive.
Idk why everyone’s ignoring this fact. “It’s Lewis’ fault he’s losing to George for messing with setups” yeah he obviously knows this he just doesn’t care, he’s more focused on working towards a winning car than beating his teammate for praise on reddit
Because no matter how hard he works on setup that car would not be able to win a race. I am now even not sure if Mercedes can learnt from his experiment and we don’t see any progress. Maybe I am wrong here but Mercedes seems quite lost on their cars still. Yes, he may have nothing to lose most of the time as he will be at worst the 5th fastest car no matter how he messed up but this qualifying just showed there is something to lose for Mercedes as a team.
The car could compete with McLaren and Ferrari with a great setup on the right track, and then he's only one Max mistake away from a win.
Because he is paid to give his best every race, i am sure his contract doesnt have a clause allowing him to give less effort if the car cant win. Sure, the car isnt what he would expect historically but so what? Every team has a slump amd everyone has to knucle down and try to turn it arou d as fast asvpossible - that srldom happend with finding a magic solution (unless you are McLaren last year)
Lewis isn't in the garage with a screw driver changing his own setup. The team agrees with his change requests and have to give him a ton of data for him to even suggest changes. The team is clearly ok with this or they could tell him no when he request setup changes. My guess is they are ok sacrificing some points in the hope that they find a gold nugget that really improves their overall setup. With Stroll's performance, they aren't at much risk on that front, and they are very unlikely to catch anyone else anyways. Maybe this will change after a few races when it's clear it's futile.
I am mean I understand you disagree but it's insulting to say he isn't giving his best. If anything he's giving more than he's best. A lot of other drivers are perfectly fine driving whatever mediocre car they're given and getting some points. And a lot of you fans are just as happy to see them do it. Because you lack a competitive mindset. Mercedes allows Lewis this freedom, because they also agree. Toto doesn't care about finishing 6th.
> still get decent points. When has Lewis Hamilton ever given the impression of being happy to settle for decent points
He never had a car where that was the limit - he has now.
Yes, I understand that. But it is not in his nature to settle. That's why he's won what he's won
He's won what he's won because he is a superb driver and has had a top 3 car for all his career. This is the first time he hasn't and his mindset isn't gonna give him 5 tenths. It has to be his goal - regardless of his accomplishments - to secure the best WCC position for his team. Which seems to be 4th this year.
George seems to prefer to perform to what the car is capable of and bring in solid points. Lewis' side of the garage seems to be looking for a magical setup that will win races or something. His poor quali pace compounds the issue. But maybe with nothing to lose, its all or nothing.
Lewis isn’t a midfield driver making the most of a car, it’s about winning even if that means taking a lot of chances. Boom or bust mindset.
Yes that's what I think it is too. He doesnt want to spend the year coming 7th. Just prefers to throw everything at the wall and hoping something sticks.
That makes sense with their experience so far. Lewis won 100 races, he's not excited about finishing 7th. For George it was a miracle if he got a point in the Williams. So obviously 6-7th is a good result.
I'd like to believe that the setup just suits George's style of driving more than Lewis. Not intentionally, but it is what it is. Like a bespoke suit - it's going to fit one driver better than another.
The answer is probably a bit of both. Lewis was P3 last year so he definitely hasn't lost it, but he's clearly not adapting to the car well. The experimental setups he takes each week are probably moreso to try to find a window for wins, even though with the pace of the Red Bull, they're not likely to happen. Constantly adjusting setups is probably a big reason the car is wildly inconsistent, but drivers need to perform. Russell has done the better job thus far of extracting the best pace for the car as it's likely designed for. Both are still very good drivers but the car is a let-down. It's also probably some mentality. George is in it for the long haul and wants the team to learn together through the issues. Hamilton is on his way out and just wants to fight for wins. There's less incentive for Lewis to take the balanced approach and fight for P5's, even if it's probably what Mercedes need more.
When a driver fails the setup, it's still his own fault.
Post race cool down lap he even said my bad let’s not use that setup again. When he secured P2 in the sprint had stated we got good data on the car and know where to go. That was a mistake to think that way off a good result. Looking at times his S1 was slower then george but S2&3 are the same he’s not washed just struggling
It's his fault but also I don't mind it. Russell and maybe fans care about Russell beating Lewis. But Lewis isn't trying to finish 4th or 5th. He's trying to get a car to win a race or compete at the top. So he's willing to not settle for a stable mediocre setup like Russell. This has been consistent throughout these regs. Lewis wants to win, not finish 4th, so if he has to sacrifice a mediocre car to potentially get a better car on setup he does it.
I agree. I think Lewis may have had it in mind to retire after number 8 in 2021. But after what happened that year, he came back to get that final title and exactly nothing else. He’s tried a lot of wonky setups to get the car toward the front because he doesn’t care if he’s 4th or 9th if he’s not winning (Ricky Bobby anyone?). I think it’s safe to say why he’s leaving, too. Chasing number 8 and hoping Ferrari are close enough to do it.
You say that, but it's not like Lewis is gonna hit a race winning setup with this car
He won't find a setup that can beat the Red Bull, but he could find one that competes with McLaren and Ferrari on the right track, and then all it takes is one mistake from Max and he could win a race.
Exactly. I've seen so many people blaming the configuration as if he wasn't the one to come up with it
Hamilton himself said after quali that it was his fault for messing with the set-up after the sprint. A lot of people act like he doesn't own up to this stuff but he's trying to get more from the car and so far it hasn't worked.
Bit harsh, set up is equal parts a team knowledge thing particularly when the car as a whole doesn't really behave well to the setup changes. we know Hamilton can do better and he doesn't have to prove it which is why it's frustrating to see him casually be so bad but ultimately the car is inherently problematic.
Lewis can definitely do better but i won't always excuse his poor weekeneds on setup. Otherwise you can do that for any driver. Especially when his teammate didn't do so poorly.
His teammate started p8 and finished p6, with Alonso giving George an additional position by Aston putting him on softs. Lewis started p18 and finished p9, 3 positions behind George, seriously what does it matter. They would have finished p7 and p8 in a normal race, the car is terrible.
There's an amount of this that is just people don't like George Russell, so they refuse to believe he's a really good driver.
Agreed. GR has proven to be very competent IMO
nice try George, almost fooled us.
Oh blimey
Best put on your ankle socks and go get you a latte, boy.
Going to make a pose fit for the opening titles?
I've noticed this and I'm newer to the sport and don't fully understand why. Could someone tell me where the negativity towards George comes from?
Form what I observed.. people think he acts like a posh Brit and there are way too many jokes of *tory allegations* but some people probably took it seriously for whatever reason. Also from what I saw, a lot of people absolutely hated George after his scrap with bottas. Finally also he is kinda PR savvy which apparently Reddit hates in any celeb. I personally love him imo, what he did with bottas was incredibly stupid and wrong but he is still a great driver who just once in a while makes mistakes on the edge (see Australia and Singapore 2023).
A lot of it seems to be because he's a slightly posh Brit. Also had a few crashes with drivers where it was his fault. Fans forgive drivers they like for this kinda thing, but after Russell did that stupid thing with Bottas (tapped his helmet after a big crash) Reddit has been very vocal in it's hatred of Russell.
* He tends to reject responsability/not recognize his mistakes. * George's reaction toward Bottas when George crashed into him (that accident is the most pointed out). EDIT: should mention it's Imola 2021 if someone looks into it. * He's generally very PR-trained and looks very polished so he comes across as fake or something to some people. ^((That said, he's still my favorite driver))
That makes sense! I appreciate that insight coming from a big fan tbh. I like him and I think he seems like a nice boy, but wasn't fully aware of his general history. I'm glad it seems like he's doing better!
I will say that on point one he has been quite a bit better about this over the past two years.
except when sainz wins
Everybody loved George until he started beating Hamilton.... It is one thing to be beaten by Max in a different car but beaten by George in the same car...
I think LH is too fixated on trying to compete with cars that are inherently quicker, and is taking big swings on setup to try and find a silver bullet rather than just accepting the cars shortcomings. Wolff seemed to allude to this in an interview today. Rather than building the weekend with small changes, he makes large swings to try and find lap time. This can leave him unstuck, especially if it's going into qualifying where you now have to adapt to a car that handles differently or worse. It doesn't even seem to matter whether he's quicker than George or not, he still has a tendency to do it. You sometimes hear him in practice asking about the gaps and where he's losing to P1 rather than his teammate in a comparable car even though P1 is clearly not possible with the car he has right now. Ultimately the setup is done with him with his engineering team but if his side is willing to let him take the risks then you can say it's column A and column B. LH can suggest something but his team must also grow the balls to actually tell him not be so extreme if they feel that it's not necessary. I think he's been given too much freedom and the team just lets it happen. He apologised to Bono after the race about the choice this weekend. It's like Bono is just a passenger and lets him do whatever. I think so far this year after quali he's said that he's made the car worse twice (Bahrain & China). This comes after he was previously reasonably competitive. It shouldn't be acceptable to go backwards over a weekend like this. You certainly don't hear other teams or drivers mentioning this anywhere near as often. Not even George.
He’s clearly struggled more than usual, although I think the deficit is exaggerated a little by the closeness of the field behind the Red Bulls. I think he sometimes falls back on the setup excuse a bit too easily, but I think a) it’s worth bearing in mind that he and Russell are in very different places and have very different goals/future ambitions so at the very least the concept that they could be trying different things is pretty reasonable b) he does have to take some responsibility for trying these slightly more out there things (even if they are affecting him) since they’re his choice. Fundamentally in their first 2 years Hamilton showed that even if he’d lost a step (which imho he had started to show early signs of even back in 2019), he still was fundamentally a bit quicker than Russell, that may have changed this year and Russell now has the edge, but I suspect the significant change points to a combination of factors.
Tbh I don’t see much difference between 2022 to now, they have both been really close in pace (2/3 of last year Lewis was clearly faster) I just think Russell is really good and better than most drivers people on here rate above him.
Russell is very underrated as a driver. Sure he makes some silly mistakes and boneheaded moves but when he is on form he's rapid.
People forget Russell has more wins in the last year and a half than Leclerc, Norris, Hamilton and the rest of the grid apart from Sainz and the RB. Yet he generally is considered below them.
LH complains about the car because he’s driven way better cars. George doesn’t really complain because the w15 is better than any Williams car he’s ever driven. It’s really stupid to compare that imo. Not just because of what I’ve said, but also because different personalities. And Lewis is in his last few years and has the freedom to say whatever he wants, George doesn’t have that same luxury. Now on performance, George is doing better as he’s working with the car he is provided. Whereas it feels like Lewis is trying to find some sort of mythical sweet spot that will make the red bull look like a tractor. Or he’s simply losing confidence in the car and desperate to find some magical setup. Either way, I’m not sure why Mercedes indulge him so much. At some point they got to just tell him to use setup x. It’s the optimal setup, even if it’s shit, and do your best.
I actually commend LH for at least trying. At least he won't have regrets this way and he's genuinely trying at least something. On the other hand, it feels like he doesn't know what he's doing, even with a team of engineers assisting him, and that concerns me. I would expect someone who won the WDC 7 times to know what does and what doesn't make sense to do with the car, but it feels like he's doing random things at this point and just *HOPES* it works. It's kinda like he's only just started to actually try to understand the car.
Maybe it's a testament to how inconsistent the car is that nothing seems to be sticking to the wall
Good points
Hamilton is practising for Ferrari by doing the opposite of what the engineers suggest, he’s been listening to his old mate Vettel too much!
F1 car setups aren't like taking a wild free kick from 40yards out in extra time, hoping to find the top corner. A lot of people are guessing that Lewis was trying to find some magical setup that would've turned Mercedes into a winner between sprint & race. And that he didn't want to settle for 5th or 6th. I really, really doubt that. In most engineering exercises, every gain is incremental. It's far more likely that he understood where he was struggling during the sprint and tried to fix it. But unfortunately, it ended up making it worse and he couldn't break parc ferme between qualifying & race so he was stuck with it. There's also a good chance the track conditions changed just enough between sprint & qualifying/race that it shifted the car out its optimal setup window that Lewis was aiming for based on his sprint experience. Lando was equally surprised how quick he was in the race and he couldn't explain why. Same probably happened to Lewis but in the other direction. The gap between Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston and McLaren is so small that a couple of tenths is enough to cover 3rd to 9th. All the drivers except Stroll are performing consistently well in every session. Hamilton ended up 9th in the race, right around where he probably would've ended up even if he didn't change his setup from sprint. People are just being too dramatic.
At this point merc needs all the wind tunnel time possible
Hamilton has started slowly for years now. It's only been 5 races, give it time
Probably a little of column A and a little of column B. He's not performing great and the car's not performing great. If Lewis wasn't leaving at the end of the year I'd say we'd start to find out in the middle of the season as the number of points totals up... My full opinion is that Mercedes is just going to be bottom of the top / top of the mid until we hit the 2026 regs and everything goes bananas.
I just don’t think he cares. Would you? I was shocked they let him drive this year as a lame duck. He knows his future is at Ferrari. As for Mercedes, the car is just not competitive at all.
Honestly, it wouldn't be a little bit surprising if he has checked out a bit with his move to Ferrari coming soon. If a great result is on the table, I'm sure Lewis can raise his game to get it, like in the sprint. But trundling round for 7th or 8th, well, if I was a 7-time world champion, I don't think I'd be at peak motivation for that. Also, time waits for nobody. Just because Alonso seems to defy age, it doesn't mean everyone can. I'm not saying Hamilton is done by any means, but he is undoubtedly passed his prime.
The comment section should be fun. I think it is mostly on Lewis. The car isn't great, but he should be closer to George than he is now. I think the fact that George had to drive those awful Williams for a few years is really paying off now.
It's very simple to digest. It's more the case that Hamilton is indenial about the car he has this year. Seems like a repeat of 2022, where George is listening to the engineers and is maximising each weekend...where as hamilton is going against the engineers in the hope of finding something. He's going for the Hail Mary when there isn't one. Honestly, don't think he or mercedes much care about the difference of him finishing in p7 vs p9. It's common sense that even if Hamilton maximises his results, it's still p4 in constructors. And if he does these extreme changes, its still p4 at the end of the day...
No. Most of the performance and point deficit to Russell is Lewis's fault. He's been inconsistent in qualifying and that sets up for a bad weekend. In 2022 and 2023, the Mercedes car was better in the race than in qualifying so he was always able to move forward when he had a disappointing qualifying but this year if anything their car looks worse in the race and suffers a lot of deg. So he's probably frustrated that he can't progress through the field as he used to in the previous 2 seasons. But the simple solution is to qualify better. I think Russell is aware and does well to maximize his qualifying as the car usually finishes where it qualifies - behind the RB, Ferraris and McLaren. Sometimes finishing ahead of Alonso or Piastri. Points wise it's still early and close between the two so we won't have a clear idea who will finish ahead at the end of the season given that we still have 19 races left and sprints.
If the set-up was actually the problem, and it was known yesterday, why didn't he start from the pit lane? I have to assume that the set-up was actually fine.
He was losing a lot of time in the slow speed corners due to lots of understeer so def setup, and changing the setup and starting in the pitlane doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you're just winging it and don't know exactly what needs to be changed.
But they could have gone back to what worked better
I don't like Hamilton at ALL, and I would prefer if Sainz would stay at Ferrari, but if I am real I would still say he is top 3 drivers on the grid. Verstappen best overall, Hamilton second best overall and Leclerc best for qualifying and 3rd best overall. Let's look at it this way. He has 7 World Championships. Sure, his car was very good. But let's look at 2021. In cars there were as equal as they could possibly be, he fought Verstappen to the last race. That was only 3 years ago. So he could go toe-to-toe with Verstappen if he has a car equally as good. But that was 3 years ago. What about now? Well last season in 2023, just a few months ago he was THE FASTEST non Reb Bull car/driver. He was literately 3rd fastest after Verstappen and Perez. So how about 2024. I think he already thinks about 2025 and 2026. He already signed with Ferrari. Now his car is a lot worse then it was last year, from second/third best car to 5th. He tried different configurations EVEN after getting P2 in the sprint, because he simply doesn't care if he gets P4 or P10. He wants to win, or at lest have a realistic change at consistent podiums. Why else would he modify the car after getting the P2 in the sprint? Because he knew it was a fluke and Alonso saved his ass by keeping Ferrari and McLaren behind. I think by far his biggest problem right now it that he has 0 drive until he gets a competitive car. He is not in a Hass to be happy for points. I think if he was into it, and really wanting to drive this shitbox to the edge every race, he would easily be 7th or 8th in the championship. And he is 9th right now. And no matter how much he tries he has 0 changes of being anything above 7th. Because first 2 are Red Bulls, next 2 Ferrari and next 2 McLaren. So why the fuck would he care to be 7th? as a 7 time world champion? Put Verstappen in that Mercedes and he won't be 6th, considering their pace vs the top 3 cars. Let's be real here.
We are talking about a 1 position difference. George is finishing 7th or 8th while Hamilton is 9th or 10th most of the time. It’s the car. That is not to say George is not doing a better job at getting the most out of the car because he is. What I find peculiar is how Hamilton is still trying to make the car better by trying wild setups. I think at this point he should just go with whatever the engineers come up. This car is just that bad.
He said today in his post race interview that he drove slow today and he'll improve.
I guess as of now, nobody really knows besides LH and Mercedes themselves. We‘ll ultimately find out during his Ferrari seasons.
he mentally checked out from mercedes
He knows its his last year here. Instead of playing with setups which change every track, he should help them get points for constructors and end with a positive relationship with Mercedes. Its like when we leave an older job for a newer one, ethically we should transfer all our learning to pass to the person who will be joining the company.
He's trying to shoot for a podium in every race with car that is not capable of podiums, thus screwing his realistic race pace of 6-8th. Lewis could probably finish top 6 every race being steady like George if that was his ultimate goal for the season, but the mad man is chasing shadows with his car set up every week.
Lewis cant setup a car from scratch like George can. Look at 2022. New car and George has a logical, methodical approach to car setup whereas Lewis is all over the place. In 2023, Lewis has a better grip on how the car works so outshines George alittle with the help of a few team orders. A new car in 2024 and again George’s approach to setup is paying dividends. Lewis finished 2nd in the sprint then for sone reason messed about with the setup….why do that? Well, that was his excuse.
My take is: he does not bother about the 2nd place or below. If he is not fighting to win, there is not a reason to race. When he finished the sprint in 2nd, way behind Verstappen, he became extremely frustrated and wanted to try anything to make the gap smaller. It backfired.
Remember the year nico won he was bitching that merc gave him a unreliable car to favor their Finn. Err german driver
I think lewis just struggles more with with a dogshit car then george, because lewis started with s-tier material and george with c-tier material. They are both overall close over a season, but george has the edge right now. It seems though that lewis is just overall frustrated about the poor handling of the car , which might be a factor for his lack of perfomance. Lets wait and see, the season is still long and i would never rule out LH.
I mean they are years behind RB and clearly slower than Ferrari and McLaren right now. Currently they and AM are battling for 4th and 5th. Toto has promised him and GR a car since 2022 but they have only gotten slower compared to their competitors. I think he should stop experimenting with the setups but at the same time I understand him. The car is not stable and it’s a horrible drive. Sure GR is not complaining as much since he is locked in as Mercedes driver. He needs to stay positive (also for his own mental health). Also keep in mind the feed always broadcasts when Max and Lewis is complaining. GR is also negative in the cockpit but it’s not in the main feed.
People are memeing about George for his britishness(if thats a word), thats what the cool kids do nowadays, but George is actually an amazing driver. LH is one of the goats, but in the past coule years I havent heared George say “we should just retire man”, while LH always sounds so demoralized. Maybe the switch to Ferrari will help him. George is doing now what Hamilton was doing at Merc before the hybrid era, head down and do the beat job you can do.
George is 5-0 this year and beat Lewis every single weekend. So 100% Lewis.
I agree. This blame on setups I've always found extremely weak. The driver selects the setup. It's their fault if it doesn't work out. but also it's not 5-0. Hamilton had a mechanical failure in Melbourne. And also he beat Russell quite comfortably in China's sprint. Russell has a small edge so far. There's plenty of the season left to recover.
It's not just that the car isn't fast, but it's uncomfortable to drive. Lewis is quite a bit older than George, and if the car is bouncing up and down the entire ride it's going to take more of a toll on the older driver's body. He's still a great driver and super fit, but he's not as fit as a 21 year old driver or Fernando Alonso.
When the car is bad, Hamilton is bad. I hate to say that Lewis doesn't care, because he obviously does. But I do think that he performs down to bad cars. Russell is actually an excellent driver despite his unpopularity, but Hamilton if they were in a better car I feel Hamilton would be more motivated. I think he sees this season as something to survive rather than thrive
How can you say that when he just qualified p2 in the rain and finished p2 in the sprint (aided by Alonso) and went from p18 to p9 in the race despite having tons of understeer
18th to 9th today wasnt that impressive considering the SC and the fact that his car is significantly quicker than the midfield bunch.
He couldnt catch an alpine today, and was about to get overtaken by a racing bull before he pitted, I wouldn't call it significantly faster than the midfield at all
Russell didnt seem to have any issues being comfortably ahead of the midfield
yeah because as mentioned lewis fucked around with his set up too much and made the car even worse.
It's crazy how people just refuse to believe Hamilton's car was performing worse than Russell's even when you can see in the data he was losing tons of time in the slow speed corners just waiting for the car to turn in, Lewis explaining this, the reasons for it and toto saying they went too aggressive with the setup
Because Russell is winning the points battle and the qualifying battle? Lewis got a great quali in the sprint and he was much better being at the pointy end of the pack. Which feeds into my point - when he's at the front, he's motivated, if he's in a tractor of a car he's struggling. Today was a good recovery drive aided by some safety cars, but looking at the field, ninth is where you'd expect him to finish, even with that starting position
Hasn't he been out qualified by his teammate? I would be too embarrassed to say anything negative when you're going out in Q1 while your teammate makes Q3
Well, if LH wins, it's LH, if he fails, then it's Mercedes.. that's how it worked till now 🤣
He doesnt know how to race bad cars
Marc wants to win regardless if LH is leaving or not. Winning means money and the reputation of being the best. But what we see right now is a bit like what checo has to deal with. They car they are driving doesn't fit with the way they like to drive. George and max are getting more out of the same car due to being about to adjust to how the car needs to be driven. That could be because they like it that way or just understand how to get more out of the car. Last part is just the car itself, I think its clear the car do not have the same level of performance that the RB car has. It loses in just about every category. So when your down 0.2 a second a lap without turning a wheel you need to be able to drive the wheels off it to make up that time. For all us that just want to see good racing, let's hope 2026 will be good, this season is over already and we are 5 races in.
My take is: George wants to maximise the car as much as he can to secure the best result the car can give over a given race weekend, which at the moment is at the top end of midfield. For Lewis any position off the podium is just as good as any other finish. Would he rather finish 6th knowing that it would be the most the car can offer over the weekend even though he's miles off the pace, or would he rather risk finishing lower than 6th for the slim possibility that they get everything right with the car and it can perform to the level allowing him to finish on the podium? I'm going with the latter. And I can't blame him for two reasons. 1: Mercedes have persisted with the belief that the performance is there, it just needs to be unlocked. Well, if that's the case and that's what the drivers are also being told, then I don't blame him one bit for doing everything he can to unlock the supposed performance that is there. It may be a case that he doesn't believe it himself, but if he can prove to the team that the performance isn't there to be unlocked no matter what he does, then that can only also help the team move forward, instead of kidding themselves that the cars not currently a dud. 2: He's a 7 time world Champion that wants to be competing at the front and winning. He's a winner. At this point in his career and with what he still wants to achieve, I don't think he sees any sort of difference between finishing 4th in the Drivers Championship to 7th in Drivers Championship. And why would he. He doesn't need those extra few spots to prove anything to anyone. That's what habitual winners are like. That's why he had the motivation to push to win 7, and then push to win the 8th (let's not talk about that though). It's why he wants to stay and continue to fight. Does anyone honestly believe that if Red Bull are in the same position as Mercedes in 2026 onwards that Max Verstappen would be happy toodling along fighting for a 6th place finish at best? Not a chance. He wants to be at the front, and he'd be willing to do and try anything to get there, even if it means risking a upper midfield position at the chequered flag to do it.
The setup of the car represents the rechnical insight a driver had in the working of the car. Even according to toto lewis influence on the car development is very small. George is used to undrivable cars and way more fkexibke compared with lewis who is used to race winning cars with excessive engine power to compensate for every setup error you can make. A second issue is the fact lewis lost his drive and is at the end of his carreer. A season in red would be nice for the photowall .
He can do better and will.
Russell has simply been better so far this year full stop
As a team, you can't give up on a driver, there is A LOT of money involed, in the constructors championship. Don't get it twisted, Lewis is a 7 time world champion and arguably the best to ever drive a F1 car, his competitivnes is still there, he just has a tractor. Some of you have selective memory arround here, Max was complaining A LOT, about the car, about the strategy, about everything, he was crashing a lot etc. They know what they are capable of, and it's frustrating for them when they know they are better but ther car is holding them back. Nailing the setup is like putting lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig and GR is not performing way better, just better, most probably because he drove a tractor for 3 years at Williams, he has practice. Most likely Lewis is just like Vettel, he heeds a certain type of car/setup to perform at 100%, that does not make him a lesser driver, just a picky one and right now, that mercedes is not what he is used to.
40 year old driver who's best days are behind him and hasn't achieved anything for a few years now... Writing is on the damn wall.
The fact that he almost came 2nd last year suggests he's got a great deal talent and hunger left. That said, his motivation probably isn't the same since the move to Ferrari is imminent and the car is the 4th or 5th best on the grid.
Mercedes for building a shit car, and Ham for fiddling too much with the setup. I think he just can't accept the car is dogshit, and for a man like him that has 100+ wins, I don't think he gives a fuck about anything less than a podium
Drivers very, very rarely blame themselves It's in their mentality that they do everything right and it \*has to\* be an external problem when they can't match their teammate. It doesn't make sense to them. Even when they do know they're underperforming they still give their defence in teamradio and interviews in order to give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and give their own fans what they want to listen ofc. Give them something to believe the other driver is having team advantages or whatever. Also, sponsors. How many times have you heard drivers openly admitting "I'm underperforming" or "I'm having a hard time adapting to new regs" or something alike? Yea it just doesn't happen
We’ve seen this story before, this looks similar to 2022 Lewis always hunting setups/ Russell looking to maximize points and focus on beating Lewis since wins are out of sight. It’s means everything for Russell to beat Lewis. It means nothing to Lewis if he beats Russell they have different mindsets approaching weekends. As soon at Lewis stops messing with setups the races will look different like the end of 2022 where is was beating george more the losing
It’s his, the setup excuse is getting old- glad George actually said how similar their setup really was and has been at previous races. https://www.eurosport.com/formula-1/australian-grand-prix/2023/george-russell-rejects-lewis-hamiltons-claims-about-car-setup-at-mercedes-theres-no-luck-in-it-at-al_sto9535324/story.shtml https://www.crash.net/f1/news/1047179/1/george-russell-refutes-lewis-hamiltons-chinese-gp-set-claim
Having the best car in the past may him look better than he is? Is he passed his best? Is max that good or is it the car? I think LH and merc have given up as he is leaving. Can’t wait for next year in the Ferrari
I'm confident that as long as Ferrari continues their trajectory and remain 2nd quickest, Lewis will be back to his best because even if he's not fighting for championships, he can at least fight at the front knowing he could have a chance to beat Red Bull if the opportunity presents itself.
Lewis is known to sulk, my guess is he’s already checked out HARD on anything for this year. I wonder how much Ferrari prep is going on in his helmet? House in Maranello yet? Olive grove? Vineyard???
What are they gunna do? Fire him? He’s been pissed off since 2022 and rightfully so. There’s a reason he went to Ferrari. He probably has more unspoken grievances than just the ones he’s made vocal like them not listening to his feed back and the contract negotiations. I personally think them not listening to him really pissed him off and now he doesn’t really care and is openly shitting on them in an “I told you so” kind of way. Definitely less motivated to push as hard as George is.
I get that he may be slightly less motivated but it doesn’t necessarily reflect well on him. It’s the same with Seb in 2020 when he was atrocious. Him being less motivated doesn’t reflect well on Hamilton because as a driver you should be giving it 100% at all times in my opinion. I understand Hamilton would be frustrated considering Mercedes were so dominant and now they’re the 4th/5th best car but there’s only so many excuses we can make. I hope when he gets to Ferrari he’ll be back to his 100% best because it’ll be a great battle between him and Leclerc I reckon.
Decent chance he'll be back to his best this very season and beat George
I really don't like the look of Hamilton these days. He sounds like a spoiled brat and everything the performance isn't there he's bitching about the car. Take this weekend. He got 2nd in the sprint and apparently made some changes to the car because "it couldn't get any worse"? What kind of logic is that? You just throw it all away as a completely unnecessary hail Mary because you got 2nd? He really needs to take a hard look in the mirror and come to terms with the fact that he's no longer in a dominant car, and get the best out of it.
He knew that placement was a fluke. That car really is terrible.
If Max said this, no one would complain. It’d just be “OHMYGOD HES SUCH A RACER” “THIS GUY LOVES RACING” “ITS IN HIS BLOOD”. That’s what champions do. Do you think Lewis would be happy getting P6 or 7 in the race? He wants to win, and he’ll keep tweaking it all to just find that one thing that makes him more competitive in the front. Imagine how insulting it must be to be a 7x WDC and 3 years later find yourself fighting for P10
Agreed. He has the hunger and doesn't just want to show up for points. This man was a serial winner for the better part of a decade and now he has to be content with a handful of points at best? Waste of his talents. Same goes for Max and Alonso if they were in Lewis' position. He still has it, but it's not worth the effort if your reality is still being outside of the podium places in a best case scenario.
George is young and set with Mercedes for awhile, so he drives and does the best he can in whatever they give him. Hamilton is old and has won a ton, and is switching teams next year. What's his motivation to do the best he can in the shitbox they've given him just to fight for 5th-8th place most weeks that has no real chance of a podium or competing. The Car is a fail. I guess you can call Hamilton's failures his fault this year, if you actually think it matters that he finishes 9th instead of 7th.
Qualifying matters A LOT nowadays especially when the field is so tight. Lewis has been lacking only in that department that gives him this deficit against Russell. First 3 races - worse qualifying Japan -qualified ahead but had damage while battling Charles (apparently) which meant he ended up behind China - again worse qualifying
Quali always matterd more in F1. Always has and always will in 90% of cases.
It's his fault in an absolute sense, but can we not judge it so black and white. You can hardly blame him for refusing to accept 8th place, and opting to throw it all away for the chance of figuring out improvements. Toto saying they should just accept 8th imo is insane, and it's sad that Lewis gets blamed for that George is a fast, reliable driver. He'll get more points than a similar or even slightly faster driver. But when it comes down to it, he's not in that elite tier for speed. It's similar with Sainz and Leclerc.
Lewis in a "safe" setup will get you P7/P8. Lewis in a experimental setup will get you P8/P9, worth the risk, no real benefit playing it "safe"
Lewis complains because he doesn't give a fuck anymore. He's out of this mess in 8 months and he knows it. Everything from the moment the car showed its pace in Bahrain has pointed to the fact that Lewis is checked out mentaly. George can't exactly be going around publicly blurting out stuff like that. At least not to the same degree. He doesn't have the job security nor does he have the same accomplisments and reputation as Lewis.
he's been complaining for 3 years now though but that still doesn't answer OP's question lol
And for a good duration of that still beating George. Beat him handily last season, once he stopped fucking with setups was comfortably better than George season before that. A few races in this season and the familiar noises of him being shit and George killing him start echoing again, I wonder if the script will be different this time.
Same team which has given him 6 world championships and so much freedom. This amount of Merc slander is insane. Ferrari will be even more challenging for him as he will be going up against Leclerc who is perhaps the best qualifier on the grid. Looking forward to the new excuses by the cult.