END OF YEAR REPORT: Mercedes – An inconsistent season and a bittersweet farewell for Hamilton

Mercedes were already in the headlines prior to the 2024 season getting under way following the bombshell news that Lewis Hamilton would depart for Ferrari in 2025. Any hopes of providing the seven-time world champion with a stronger car for his final outing looked to have fallen short in the early stages – and while the team enjoyed a mid-season winning streak, the W15’s inconsistencies resulted in an up and down campaign. Here’s the Silver Arrows’ end of year report…

Best finish

George Russell – 1st in Austria and Las Vegas; Lewis Hamilton – 1st in Britain and Belgium

After another tough start to the season, glimmers of hope started to appear for Mercedes around the time of the Canadian Grand Prix in June, where George Russell took pole position before claiming the team’s first podium of the year.

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But it was two rounds on in Austria that gave the Silver Arrows a much longed-for victory, with Russell seizing the opportunity after a late-race collision between leaders Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.

This kickstarted a strong run for the squad which saw Hamilton score an emotional win at the British Grand Prix – his first victory in 945 days – while they would have claimed a one-two in Belgium had it not been for Russell’s post-race disqualification for an underweight car, which handed P1 to Hamilton.

While the second half of the campaign did not yield the same success for Mercedes, that one-two result eventually came in Las Vegas, a weekend in which the W15 seemed to thrive in cooler conditions as Russell led Hamilton home.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - NOVEMBER 23: Race winner George Russell of Great Britain and Mercedes and — Russell and Hamilton brought home a dominant one-two for Mercedes in the Las Vegas Grand Prix

Qualifying head-to-head

Russell 18-6 Hamilton

It was advantage Russell when it came to qualifying form in 2024, with the 26-year-old claiming a better grid slot than his team mate at 18 of 24 races. This also included four pole positions, while Hamilton’s best result of the campaign was his P2 starting position at Silverstone.

Hamilton himself was openly critical of his own Saturday performances during the season, the 105-time race winner lamenting his qualifying struggles on more than one occasion. After Sprint Qualifying at the penultimate round in Qatar, he claimed he was “just slow, and [it’s the] same every weekend” before branding himself as “definitely not fast anymore”.

Race head-to-head

Russell 15-9 Hamilton

Hamilton fared better in race trim, but Russell ultimately still comes out on top in this head-to-head. The younger Briton also ended the season with more points, his tally of 245 putting him sixth in the drivers’ championship ahead of Hamilton on 223 in seventh.

The pair are on equal footing when it comes to victories (two apiece), while Hamilton just has the edge in terms of podiums, having stood on the rostrum a total of five times in comparison to Russell’s four. It is likely that neither driver will be satisfied with these statistics, however, given that they lag some way behind their rivals at McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull.

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - OCTOBER 27: George Russell of Great Britain driving the (63) Mercedes AMG — Russell outscored Hamilton in both the qualifying and race day head-to-heads in 2024

Best moment

Given that their one-two in Belgium – which came after a brave one-stop strategy call by Russell followed by a thrilling late-race chase from Hamilton – was denied by Russell’s disqualification, it was a sweet moment for the team to finally achieve this on the streets of Las Vegas.

The result came as something as a surprise to victor Russell, who admitted that he did not know how the squad had been so quick in what proved to be a “dream of a weekend” that delivered the Silver Arrows’ first pole position and win in four months.

But in terms of emotional impact, Hamilton’s return to winning ways in front of his home crowd at the British Grand Prix would be hard to beat as the team’s best moment in 2024. For the 39-year-old to stand on the top step again for the first time since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, for a record-breaking ninth win at Silverstone, and for his final home race as a Mercedes driver, it had all the ingredients of a fairytale come true.

Worst moment

Off the back of their mid-season strong run of form, the Silver Arrows faced some trying times as they grappled with the inconsistencies of their car post-summer break. The Singapore Grand Prix proved particularly tough, with Toto Wolff labelling it a “really painful, painful evening” as he acknowledged that crossing the line a minute behind the leader was “difficult to accept”.

Another tough moment came when rookie Kimi Antonelli – much lauded by the team – crashed during his debut FP1 appearance at Monza, only one day before he was confirmed as Hamilton’s replacement in 2025.

But perhaps one of the most challenging events was the Australian Grand Prix, a weekend that did little to raise morale during a difficult start to the year after Hamilton retired with a mechanical issue while Russell suffered a dramatic crash that saw his car end up sideways on the track. In the wake of this, Hamilton stated that it had been the “worst start to a season I’ve ever had”.

2024 British Grand Prix: Emotional scenes in parc ferme as Hamilton celebrates a record ninth Silverstone win

Going forward

Ending the season a distant fourth in the constructors’ championship – their weakest result since 2012 – will, needless to say, not have been the outcome that Mercedes were hoping for in 2024.

Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin admitted at the campaign’s end that it had been a “long and, at times, tough season” for the team, as well as acknowledging that “there is more work for us to do if we are to challenge for championships once again”.

This is something that the men and women back at base in Brackley and Brixworth are focused on going forward – and, given how increasingly competitive the field became as the 2024 season progressed, the Silver Arrows will be hoping to get themselves back in the mix amongst their rivals at the front on a more consistent basis next year.

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And while a new raft of regulations will not be introduced into the sport until 2026, there is already a new era unfolding at Mercedes in 2025 given the exit of Hamilton, whose 12-year relationship with the team has been the longest and most successful in the sport’s history. Given the challenges of their final season together, 2024 was a bittersweet ending to that partnership.

This ending has brought forward the start of Antonelli’s arrival into F1, with the 18-year-old one of a number of rookies preparing to make their debut next season. It will be fascinating to see how the young Italian fares as he steps up for the biggest move of his so-far rapid rise through the motorsport ranks.

Russell, meanwhile, enters into his fourth season racing for the squad and will now take on the role of team leader, while Valtteri Bottas returns as a reserve driver. The Finn was a popular member of the Mercedes outfit during his stint as Hamilton’s team mate from 2017-2021 – but time will tell if the Silver Arrows are able to recapture those glory days in the near future…