After trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin revealed that the Mercedes team will use the final three races of the 2024 season as glorified test sessions to assist George Russell and Kimi Antonelli for the following year, Lewis Hamilton is prepared for a disappointing finish to his career.
This winter, Hamilton will join Ferrari, despite the fact that the 2024 season has been among the worst of his Formula One career. Apart from a spectacular three-race run in the middle of the season that resulted in two victories and a podium, the renowned Brit has frequently been left feeling let down.
That was amply illustrated by the contrast between him and teammate Russell during the previous game in the torrential Sao Paulo conditions. While his colleague maintained the lead for the first part of the race and ultimately finished in P4, Hamilton was struggling to keep his W15 on the track.
It doesn’t seem likely that Hamilton will finish his illustrious Mercedes career with a victory or even a podium. The Silver Arrows have little left to gain ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix next weekend after losing a lot of distance to rivals Ferrari, McLaren, and Red Bull. According to Shovlin, “the key to learning is that the areas in which we are weak remain the same.” It’s the slow, connected corners. Usually, that’s where we make mistakes.
“Going into the weekend, we certainly had sector two in Brazil, which has a lot of those corners, on our radar as an area that we might struggle. The big focus in these remaining races for us is learning what we can.
We are in a position in the championship where we cannot challenge in front of us. It is very unlikely we are going to see any challenge from behind. Our focus has very much shifted to learning what we need to this year to apply to next year in order to get on top of those issues.”
This will be welcome news to Antonelli, who is getting ready for a rookie season unlike many we’ve seen in recent years, but it is not what Hamilton would want to hear as he attempts to close his Mercedes career in style. When the 18-year-old makes his Grand Prix debut in Melbourne next March, he will be expected to follow in the footsteps of the most successful driver in Formula One history, despite having only participated in two FP1 sessions with the Silver Arrows.
Read more news at
Sportchannel.co.uk
Leave a Reply