Is the Hamilton/Mercedes relationship souring just before its emotional ending?

Here it is, then. After 243 Formula 1 races, there are just three remaining of what is statistically the greatest-ever driver/team partnership. Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes: the end.

Ever since Hamilton made his decision to jump ship to Ferrari for 2025, the current campaign was destined to be very different to the 11 that had come before, with all those wins and titles. Inevitably, given the heavy PR side of the F1 game, it’s been quite the year in message management.

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This started with Mercedes making a conspicuous effort to avoid scrutiny at the W15’s season launch. This meant that after two years of many promises preceding much disappointment, the team built itself something of a shield. But also questions on its time about Hamilton’s future in another team’s colours were handily stymied too.

That approach has continued. But, of late, the messages coming from both sides stand out more starkly, with some of a sour flavour, than earlier in this last hurrah. At the Brazilian GP, after struggling to 10th in the main event, Hamilton said he was “looking forward to Christmas” after “a disaster of a weekend” with “the worst the car has ever been”.

In the last week, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has been quoted saying “everyone has a shelf life” in explaining why Hamilton was only offered a one-plus-one-year contract back in mid 2023, which in part drove the upcoming Ferrari switch after just the first of those seasons.

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The 2024 campaign has been far from the glorious ending either side was nevertheless targeting when Hamilton made his decision. Indeed, the seven-time world champion’s struggles when current team-mate George Russell has regularly made a fist of it with the W15 – such as in those 28 laps led at Interlagos and with a 20:6 imbalance across all qualifying sessions in the younger Briton’s favour this year – have given rise to awkward conspiracy theories about Mercedes equipment.

Russell has enjoyed the upper-hand over Hamilton in qualifying this year, although the seven-time champion brilliantly out-duelled him in Mexico

Photo by: Andy Hone

That’s one thing, but the timing of this new shift in messaging is interesting given it comes right on the precipice of what will no doubt be an emotional ending in Abu Dhabi. That’s now just three weeks away and will still be a celebratory moment for Hamilton and the 1,000-strong Mercedes F1 staff he has represented for over a decade.

To understand what is really going on, timing – again – is key.

Back in January, Wolff stated that he’d heard “rumours a couple of days earlier” that Hamilton would be heading to Ferrari. Now, on the High Performance podcast, he claims “the old man Sainz [Carlos Sainz Sr] called me and said, ‘this is what's happening’”. All this ties together with comments Wolff has made regarding his instinct to pick Andrea Kimi Antonelli as Hamilton’s replacement, along with the “shelf life” point.

Wolff just doesn’t have to outline again how the Abu Dhabi saga crosses his mind “every week”. And yet, he does

Wolff has a whole team to shield, plus an image he hones delicately. But the main thing to remember here is that Mercedes currently has a book to sell and such quotes are very handy promotion.

He just hasn’t stuck the boot in as he could’ve. Indeed, the tone of his HPP appearance is notably warm and flowing when it comes to his relationship with Hamilton. Perhaps getting all Sun Tzu – as Wolff’s predecessor Ross Brawn did in his ‘Total Competition’ book – is still to come, once Hamilton is finally suiting up in Scuderia scarlet.

But the scale of feeling at this stage, at least, suggests not. Wolff just doesn’t have to outline again how the Abu Dhabi saga crosses his mind “every week”. And yet, he does.

That might come at a risk of upsetting a selectively delicate driver Wolff is currently taking a pause from courting: Max Verstappen. He infamously boycotted Sky Sports F1 when the accurate statement of how the events of Abu Dhabi 2021 had “robbed” Hamilton of an eighth world title was aired in late 2022.

Wolff, pictured with Verstappen's manager Raymond Vermeulen, has hit pause on his courtship of the Red Bull ace

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

That Wolff chooses his words very carefully when discussing other elements of that 2021 campaign, and his subsequent relationship with Verstappen and his camp emphasises the tricky nature of the topic for him right now, with a possible 2026 lure from Red Bull still at play. But, overall, it reinforces the takeaway that Wolff’s beliefs over the Abu Dhabi officiating saga are genuine.

Hamilton’s response to what was an awful Brazil weekend came just minutes after he’d climbed from his car after a hard and painful race. F1 has long known Hamilton wears his heart on his sleeve in such moments and with that context his misery is understandable.

Given the ferocity of the meaning in his words, plus how elated he was in having successfully outduelled Russell the week before in Mexico, Ferrari should be relishing what a fired-up Hamilton can do for it come 2025. His resolve, otherwise, has just about held in this disappointing farewell year.

Hamilton’s “if this is the last time I get to perform it was a shame it wasn't great” comment – delivered seconds after he’d crossed the line after his unsuccessful chase of RB’s Liam Lawson – makes for very different listening.

It gives unfortunate rise to those conspiracy theories, where, again, it’s worth noting how bafflingly self-harming this would be for a team where staff have a financial incentive for both its drivers to score as many points as possible. The current explanation for Hamilton’s radio message is that it refers to how Mercedes is shuffling its pit crew around the climax of F1’s longest-ever season.

Returning to timing ahead of the year’s final triple header and there’s still a chance for the Hamilton/Mercedes era to end with a final taste of glory.

Monza offers a handy clue for what might happen in Las Vegas – around the cold tyre temperature problem that has already got Ferrari, 2023 near-winner in Sin City, worried. Abu Dhabi is thought to be firm McLaren territory. But Qatar returns F1 to a truly high-speed setting for the first time since Spa and Silverstone on the summer break’s eve. Hamilton was victorious in both (albeit with Russell’s post-race disqualification in Belgium).

The outpouring of emotion in his record-extending British GP triumph ticked the vow for ending his Mercedes era having finally got back to the height in which it predominantly endured. All the current messages boil down to the same bare truth: what is happening now for both Hamilton and Mercedes is simply the process of their ending.

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Photo by: Erik Junius