Who will lead the Mercedes F1 resurgence in 2024?

The 2023 and 2016 Formula 1 seasons share a notable aspect: in win-percentage terms a single team in each – Red Bull and Mercedes at 95.5% and 90.5% respectively – achieved dominance comparable with McLaren’s 93.8% strangling of the 1988 campaign. But surely for all apart from the most ardent of Max Verstappen fans, last season offered precious little intrigue. With no title battle beyond the early rounds of a very long season, it became historically repetitive.

The 2016 campaign isn’t viewed as such – even though by then plenty of fans were tiring of Mercedes’ dominance. This is because, unlike Sergio Perez’s short-lived challenge to Verstappen last year, both drivers from the Silver Arrows squad had a shot at title glory. Lewis Hamilton versus Nico Rosberg was compulsive viewing.

The Hamilton/Rosberg battle had so much needle – including internecine contact – that what followed when Rosberg retired and was replaced by Valtteri Bottas could never achieve such billing. Indeed, reducing internal tensions and stabilising the Mercedes ship was the priority of team boss Toto Wolff when he gave Bottas the nod. Five seasons of relative calm ensued as Bottas mostly performed the role of compliant number two.

The Finn's replacement, George Russell, is an altogether different prospect. There’s not been the same levels of palpable hostility as the Rosberg years – Hamilton and Russell have only shared one podium when Mercedes has been victorious, reducing the opportunities for public displays of cap-throwing pettiness/glorious shithousery (delete as you see fit) – but Russell is unafraid to take his shot against Hamilton. The heir is already taking on the incumbent star. Now Hamilton is set to head to Ferrari for 2025, Russell is already anointed as Mercedes’ new team-leader-in-waiting.

The stakes are getting higher

Now, it wasn’t quite the same as Barcelona 2016, but the intra-Mercedes crash in the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix put what’s now the Black Arrows squad on similarly uncomfortable ground. The incident followed Hamilton and Russell’s Suzuka battle in which both went briefly off the road, and two bizarre instances of Mercedes pitwall miscommunications in qualifying that nearly led to its drivers colliding at Barcelona, then getting in each other’s way in the Spa sprint shootout. At Suzuka Russell practically snarled: “Who are we trying to fight here – each other or the others?”

And all this in a year where, really, Mercedes had no chance of title glory.

Mercedes hopes it can take the fight to Red Bull in 2024, but that would ramp up the intensity of its team-mate dynamic

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Amongst all the predictable expectation-management hot air ahead of this season, something else is discernible: hope. For many fans, it’s the hope that Verstappen’s supremacy will be challenged and a repeat of 2021’s epic realised. For Mercedes, the hope is that it will be the team which provides such a test. And if that hope does become reality, the Hamilton/Russell rivalry automatically acquires fresh meaning – especially since the dynamic will change, given Hamilton’s departure.

But even if Mercedes’ W15 falls short of providing the platform to embark on such a challenge, the upcoming season will be an important chapter in both drivers’ careers. For Hamilton, that yearning for a Mercedes resurgence is even more critically tied to his own chances of taking back the crown
before he departs.

Late in 2023, he was describing that year and the one before in these terms: “We were not fighting for a championship, so it was all about discovery.” This was because he and Mercedes were “erratic” – devoting much time to set-up experiments in the hope of understanding and debugging the W13’s awkward combination of porpoising and bouncing. It took rather too long to learn that one was separate from, if related to, the other.

"What you’ve got to learn is you should never say never. But at that point [2021], I definitely didn’t think I’d be continuing. They are frickin’ long seasons. It’s a long time away from everyone" Lewis Hamilton on racing into his 40s

Last season was another write-off and the team acknowledged as much before the first race in Bahrain. Hamilton dedicated himself to spending “more time at the factory, having meetings with all of the key heads of the different departments and trying to keep them positive”. He now admits to “frustrations” after he’d “asked for certain changes and they clearly weren’t done”.

Insiders say those “certain changes” amounted to the abandonment of the ‘Zeropod’ aerodynamic concept that Mercedes adopted with the W13 and maintained with the W14. Belatedly Hamilton got his way and the car was then redesigned with Red Bull-style downwashing sidepods. Despite the inherent compromise this involved, Hamilton was able to do “a lot less of that experimental stuff” –
and he ended 2023 more consistent overall and “really happy through the year” with “my race craft and race pace”.

This is backed up in his results, which for a good while had him threatening Perez’s second place behind Verstappen in the final standings. Only that Qatar crash stood out as a major error, although Hamilton was fortunate to escape going off in the Zandvoort rain and things got a bit scrappy in Las Vegas.

Holding back the years

Such consistent excellence remains a valuable faculty for a driver now set to race on into his 40s – assuming nothing untoward prevents Hamilton making his third fresh F1 start at Ferrari. He had said “I honestly hope I’m not racing at 40” back in 2021, but now he feels very differently – Ferrari having offered him the long-term contract he desired, when Mercedes could not. Hamilton acknowledges he draws inspiration from his great rival, Fernando Alonso, excelling still at the top level.

Hamilton, just like great rival Alonso, will be racing in F1 into his 40s

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar

“What you’ve got to learn is you should never say never”, Hamilton says of racing into his 40s. “But at that point [2021], I definitely didn’t think I’d be continuing. They are frickin’ long seasons. It’s a long time away from everyone. I’ve been doing it 16 years. It’s gruelling.”

To mitigate these negatives, Hamilton deploys various tactics that mean “I feel great in my body”. Each winter he takes a dedicated period to reset from the season just gone and get revitalised for the one upcoming. After his bitter outcome in the 2021 battle, he went to Hawaii with his family, where he considered retirement before concluding: “I just wanted to get up again and keep going”.

At that stage he enacted a complete social media blackout, which he replicated to a lesser extent during the winter now ending. Even in what is a valuable element of Hamilton’s business life, he clearly aims to shut out the noise as much as possible during this period of reflection. And we now know he used this time to weigh up the merits of Ferrari’s offer.

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On the training front, Hamilton’s “meticulous” approach to his diet and tweaking and improving his fitness regimes must combine as his driving career stretches on. Alonso has been open about having to adapt his training to account for ageing, while Hamilton takes additional inspiration from his acquaintance Tom Brady – who succeeded in such a brutal world as the NFL in his mid-40s in large part thanks to his relentless focus on keeping his body healthy.

At the same time, dedicated mental emphasis on upcoming goals is just as valuable to Hamilton at this stage of his F1 career. He says he’s still driven by “the dream of standing on the top step” again and seeing Mercedes succeed at the same time.

But he also wants to expand his Mission 44 initiative to improve diversity in motorsport. Inspiring the next generation of black athletes or any other role in sport is clearly a powerful motivation and Hamilton, who admits he’s “got to raise more money” to achieve Mission 44’s aim, is no doubt also aware that his messages carry more power if he stays active and visible. The Ferrari move provides fresh impetus for this.

There were a few elements of 2023 Hamilton surely won’t want to repeat. Ahead of the second round, it was announced that he and long-time trainer Angela Cullen had split. This was announced in amicable terms and Hamilton now says, “I’ve got a better team around me than ever before”. But it was a sudden development and any change to a driver’s close working unit requires time to adjust. His long-time associate, Marc Hynes, is now back in his camp, while he’s ended his agreement with management company Copper.

For various reasons, both Hamilton and Russell have been aiming to get back to their best

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Could it be magic?

Ultimately, as a seven-time world champion, Hamilton seeks “the magic” where “everything comes together, the car and you, and you get that spark [that’s] extraordinary”. Russell heads into 2024 not only trying to locate that sweet spot but restoring his reputation in some quarters.

After a brilliant start to 2023, where Russell had outshone Hamilton in qualifying, led brilliantly in Melbourne before the first red flag, and been waved through by his soon-to-be-ex team-mate in Miami, Russell had a run of seemingly careless crashes. In Canada he went off solo, on the last lap in Singapore he clouted the wall while hustling, then in Las Vegas he turned in on Verstappen.

He puts those high-profile errors down to “purposely trying to push myself further and beyond”. So he too headed into the off-season targeting a “reset” after “probably the toughest season I’ve ever had psychologically – bouncing back from missed opportunities, missed results, mistakes”. But for 26-year-old Russell, those clashes with Hamilton over on-track real estate in 2023 come from a positive position.

“I think it’s normal when you’re so close in performance,” Russell explains. “When you’re lapping at the same [pace] or you’re starting next to one another on the grid, you’re always going to be close.”

One area in which Russell falls short of Hamilton is in-race tyre management prowess. Too often he goes off too hard and pays a price over the longer stints – as in that late Singapore GP charge last year

The extent to which this is a positive will likely be redefined if Mercedes can somehow launch back into title contention against Red Bull this year. These hopes have been invigorated by technical director James Allison – now also tied to a fresh long-term contract – recently suggesting Red Bull’s design path may lead to “gains getting more and more asymptotic”.

Allison’s theory is that car performance in F1’s ground-effect era is inherently more limited, whereas under the previous regulations there was always more to be found – provided a team had the money to spend. Matched against that is the knowledge Verstappen’s squad did not bring many upgrades across 2023 overall and could easily have been holding back ahead of a bigger step this season.

Russell will be the most exposed if Mercedes has a car worthy of the championship, since he’s the one unproven at such a level. But to dismiss his chances misses the lessons from his rise to this point – he’s such a determined character. This is evidenced in his high expectations of his junior formula squads and regular radio questioning over strategy calls at a team as well-drilled as Mercedes. Of these, Russell had come into 2023 wondering if he might be best toning such messages down. But, in any case, his spare capacity at speed is an attribute all greats share.

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One area in which he falls short of Hamilton is in-race tyre management prowess. Too often he goes off too hard and pays a price over the longer stints – as in that late Singapore GP charge last year. With an 11-11 2023 qualifying record against a driver who has 104 F1 poles to his credit, overall speed clearly isn’t Russell’s problem.

Wolff will have a challenging year balancing the Hamilton-Russell dynamic and selecting Hamilton's successor

Photo by: Mercedes AMG

Pressure from above

But there’s one final figure central to this nearly complete tale of team-mates: Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff. 

The Austrian has a new three-year contract as F1 team principal with no performance clauses contained within. The announcement of it via the Daily Telegraph newspaper suggests this
was more to do with image presentation and the importance of minimising disruption that
is imperative to any successful operation. After all, he co-owns the squad and was hardly likely to sack himself – even after Mercedes’ first winless season since 2011.

Wolff elevated Russell to race alongside Hamilton after a two-year stint as a Mercedes junior and three seasons learning F1 at Williams. The scenario playing out now is Wolff’s to own. So too, ultimately, is Hamilton’s departure.

Having let Esteban Ocon head to Alpine/Renault back in 2020, there is no obvious candidate to replace either Mercedes incumbent. Its latest fast-rising junior – Andrea Kimi Antonelli – is making waves in the lower formulae but, now he’s set to race for Prema Racing in Formula 2, his momentum must remain if he is to earn a future F1 elevation, which surely would be at a smaller team.

Such opportunities are harder for works squads to find now even the independent teams are more financially healthy. And it's no given he would join Williams, despite team boss James Vowles knowing Antonelli well from his time as Mercedes’ former strategy chief, stating "that doesn't mean he'll be in Williams, necessarily" during testing as the Grove team develops its own prospects Zak O'Sullivan and Franco Colapinto.

If Mercedes is to turn its fortunes around as it desires, avoiding the internecine warfare it has previously experienced is a must. And that, given the characters involved – and with Hamilton heading off – is one of Wolff’s challenges for 2024 even if the W15 isn’t up to scratch. But the car challenge is the greater importance, which is why Hamilton says in pressure terms there’s a “huge amount, for sure” on his boss right now.

Handily for Wolff, Hamilton is clear that for everyone at Mercedes – including himself and Russell – that’s the case “not just [for] Toto, but globally, all of us…”

Hamilton says the pressure is on everyone at Mercedes to ensure it can fight for the title in 2024

Photo by: Erik Junius