After a long Formula One dry spell for Mercedes-AMG Petronas, an expert analyst believes Lewis Hamilton may finally get the team back to its winning ways. There’s doubt, however, if the driver will realize his eighth coveted world championship or if Mercedes F1 will emerge as the top constructor in the sport for 2024.
Mercedes F1 in the Past Two Seasons
The last triumph for Mercedes F1 came in from George Russell during the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix. Following that, the team failed to grab a single win for the entire 2023 season. This was the worst stroke of bad luck for the group since the 2011 season under the Ross Brawn administration.
The best they got last year was runner-up positions for Lewis Hamilton in Australia, Spain, the US (in Austin before getting disqualified), and Mexico. Overall, he achieved six podium finishes, excluding the DQ in Austin.
George Russell, on the other hand, only climbed the podium as P3 in Spain and Abu Dhabi. It should be noted though that the latter was something that mattered most for Mercedes F1’s bid to take the P2 in the Constructors Championship.
Mercedes bagged the P3 and P8 during the last F1 Grand Prix of 2023 to keep its total score at 409 points. The numbers were enough to keep a narrow three-point lead from Ferrari in the Constructors Standings. This also occurred at the expense of a DNF (Did Not Finish) from the Prancing Horse’s Carlos Sainz, so the affair was more of a stroke of luck than a definitive victory for some fans.
Mercedes F1 Resurgence in 2024
F1’s correspondent Lewrence Barretto thinks Hamilton may be heading toward breaking the dominance of Red Bull, particularly the reigning Drivers’ Champion Max Verstappen. The analyst said that the 2023 campaign was “a far better” fight by the Mercedes driver despite not scoring a win for the second year in a row.
Barretto added Hamilton deserved to secure the P3 in last season’s Drivers Standings, which was three steps up from his 2022 rank. For him, it just shows how much the veteran driver has left in the tank.
Crunching down the numbers, however, reveals that Mercedes’ star racer had nine podiums two years ago compared to just six last year. Within these moments, he captured five runner-up finishes in 2022 while only having four P2s (including the DQ in Texas) in 2023. But then again, the stats of Hamilton were more volatile the year following his 2021 championship loss.
The F1 expert sees the team’s abandonment of the zero pod concept that brought them nothing but “abject misery” as a catalyst for their change in performance.
“I expect Hamilton, who will start the first of a new two-year deal next season, to revel in a car that the team hope is more driveable, predictable and – more importantly – faster,” Barretto forecasted. “While a championship fight is almost certainly out of the question, that kind of step should end his two-year absence for a victory.”