The Mercedes Ups and Downs
It was a strange season for Mercedes, they noticeably struggled in pre-season and naturally that flowed into the start of the season. They had some difficult results, particularly for Hamilton who seemed to struggle more than Russell. Come the middle part of the season their fortunes seem to change for the better. Several podiums for both drivers included a win in Austria for Russell and two wins for Hamilton in Britain and Belgium. Russell did win the Belgium Grand Prix, only to be disqualified after the race after the car failed to make the minimum mandated weight. From then on until the end of the season it was a bit hit and miss, a podium in Baku and a 1-2 in Las Vegas being the only real highlight. Toto Wolff blamed the car even though Russell seemed to regularly extract the best results out of the car. In the end 4th in the constructors is the worse they have finished for several years, having lost ground to both McLaren and Ferrari.
The Team
There were no real changes to the team structure for the 2024 season. James Allison was the latest of the more notable members of the team, but he had already arrived for the 2024 season. They did however go with a different concept for 2024 regarding the car design. Not something that seemed to pay off, however when the car worked, it was clearly very fast. The team struggled to understand the car at times and subsequent updates did not always correlate to the track.
The Drivers
Obviously, the biggest talking point here was the announcement that Lewis Hamilton would be leaving at the end of 2024 for Ferrari. The announcement made before the 2024 season got under way, suggested it could be a year of struggles for Hamilton. I say this because the team will naturally start to shy away from sharing new concepts and ideas with the driver leaving and the knowledge, he would be a lower priority for any new developments coming to the car. That seemed to show with Hamilton’s early struggles, however he seemed to get over them, got himself a few wins and ended up 22 points behind Russell in the standings.
Russell had a solid season all things considered, and he will be looking forward to 2025 where he will be the team leader.
For next season Andrea Kimi Antonelli joins the team. The jury is still out on the rookie as his only outing in the Mercedes car during practice at Monza he put it into the wall. If Antonelli tries to go too quick too soon we could see the Merc in the wall a fair bit.
For 2025….
Mercedes will want to move back up the Constructors table, they finished 2023 in 2nd and 4th in 2024. They desperately need to put more pressure on McLaren and Ferrari. They need Antonelli to be more consistent than quick to start with and if they are not at the front, they should be in a good position to take advantage of any issues with the guys at the front.
2024 Season Rating 6/10
The DRS Zone 
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