Ferrari can rest easy: Lewis Hamilton faced technical difficulties, but his brilliance remains intact

12/29/2024 08:28 AM

It is a question that has accompanied us throughout 2024 and will continue at least until March: was Lewis Hamilton a technical asset for Ferrari, or was his signing driven solely by commercial reasons, as the fiercest critics claim?

The 2024 Formula 1 championship, which concluded on December 8 with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, was not one of the best for the seven-time F1 world champion, this is a well-established fact. The positive aspect was his return to victory: he won twice, both on iconic and highly demanding tracks like Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps. The downside is that he once again lost the internal battle both in qualifying and in races. This situation reflected on the standings, with George Russell once again ahead of his fellow countryman.

These facts led some to believe that the British driver was on the decline. Clearly, we are talking about a driver who will turn 40 in a few days, so it is natural not to expect his career to still be developing toward its peak. However, one must be cautious with harsh judgments, avoiding drawing perhaps hasty conclusions.

Lewis Hamilton did not have a mixed season due to a lack of motivation or because of an internal battle within Mercedes after his switch to Ferrari was announced on February 1. No, the British driver paid the price due to the W15, a car he never truly connected with, especially in terms of achieving fast lap times, where the feeling and symbiosis with the car need to be total.

First of all, it should be emphasized that the average gap Lewis Hamilton had to George Russell in qualifying was amplified in terms of grid positions. With a very closely matched performance package, even losing a few tenths could cost several positions. This dynamic magnified the difference between the two Mercedes drivers.

The head of track engineering, Andrew Shovlin, explained that Hamilton's difficulties were mainly due to a car that wasn't very fast and had a setup window that was too narrow. Some may rightfully point out that these issues also affected George Russell.

One of the technical characteristics of the W15 was its tendency to lock the brakes during braking, a feature that did not suit Hamilton’s driving style, especially since the former McLaren driver prefers smooth braking. Additionally, the car tended to take not-so-smooth racing lines exiting corners, behaving almost "in jerks," another factor not in line with Hamilton’s driving style. In races where these issues were overcome, like Silverstone, Spa-Francorchamps, and even Las Vegas, Lewis managed to hold his own and deliver strong performances. However, the problem was that the car couldn't perform like this consistently over the course of the 24 races.

Many drivers who tend to excel at braking have faced difficulties with the new-generation cars. Hamilton's issues were evident in all three years of these types of cars. So, are the characteristics of ground-effect cars something the British champion has never fully adapted to? According to Shovlin, that is not the solution to the puzzle.

In the engineer's opinion, the problem stemmed from a characteristic that has plagued Mercedes cars over the past three years: getting the car to rotate while preventing overheating of the rear tires. In fact, last year Hamilton had complained extensively about the rear end of the W14, even raising doubts about the car's design philosophy. These concerns grew so large and convincing that the creator of that car, Mike Elliott, was effectively sidelined from the team until his contract was terminated.

Lewis Hamilton’s driving style exacerbated the problems on a single lap. The difficulty in keeping the rear tires within the ideal operational window was felt significantly this season, leading to a clear internal defeat in terms of pushing on a lap.

George Russell demonstrated better adaptability to the characteristics of the Silver Arrow. It's not that Hamilton didn't try to use setups similar to his teammate's, but the results were almost never satisfactory. Lewis' problems became evident when pushing to the maximum on a fast lap. It was in those circumstances – and we saw this repeatedly in the dynamic behavior of the W15 – that the difficulties with the rear end became apparent.

The car tended to snap into oversteer, forcing Lewis to "fight" from the center of the corner to the exit, which caused him to lose precious hundredths of a second in each turn. This behavior was due both to the setups and to how the fast lap was prepared with rear tires that weren't perfectly in the thermal window.

Mercedes, according to Shovlin himself, failed to consistently provide a car that allowed Lewis to reach the limit based on his driving style. It wasn't easy to enter a good balance window and, especially for Lewis, once that window was reached, it wasn't easy to maintain it. This explains weekends that started well in terms of setup but ended poorly with an inability to adapt to a changing track. These issues faded when the distances increased. On race pace, Hamilton often showed that he was ahead of his teammate, but track position strongly penalized him because he sometimes had to recover many positions, given that he didn't always make it into Q3, something Russell managed with more consistency.

Lewis Hamilton and his prospects at Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton arrives at Ferrari hoping to find a car – currently called Project 677 – that is more straightforward and has a wider operational window, enabling him to be fast in the race – something that happens relatively easily – but also in qualifying.

On the single lap, the British driver will likely face the best qualifier on the grid, meaning the internal battle could turn into a sort of nightmare for the seven-time world champion. In 2024, Charles Leclerc, while beating Carlos Sainz, occasionally showed some difficulty in getting the Pirelli tires into the right window.

A lot of work was done with Callum Frith, Ferrari’s tire chief, but not all difficulties have been overcome. The Ferrari SF-24, at one point, took a development direction that wasn't entirely suited to the Monegasque driver’s style, which somewhat resembles Hamilton's. Like Lewis, Charles prefers a more solid front end with a rear end that is easier to control.

The rear axle needs to be guided without showing the jerky movements Shovlin talked about. With the updates introduced during the summer, Ferrari became a car that was less prone to understeer and easier to drive with a rear end under control; this helped Charles, who in the second half of 2024 was the driver who collected the most points of all the other contenders.

Next year, Ferrari will have two drivers who, in general, prefer a car with very specific characteristics, unlike what happened in 2024 with Carlos Sainz, who tends to favor slightly understeering cars. Clearly, this divergence in driving styles has also reflected in the development path taken by the Maranello engineers and technicians. Next year, however, the path to follow will be a single one: both drivers could benefit from this technical condition.

Clearly, we do not have a crystal ball, nor do we intend to make predictions about what the internal battle at Ferrari will yield, but it's possible to imagine that the 2025 car, if it follows the trends seen in the final months of the 2024 season, could be a tool that allows Hamilton to overcome the difficulties encountered during the last world championship.

On the other hand, Ferrari also has some small issues to address, as team principal Frederic Vasseur said during the end-of-year press conference. Resolving the thermal management issues with the tires that have occasionally emerged is crucial to avoid the sinusoidal pattern that characterized the 2024 season.

At Maranello, they want to avoid the highs and lows that ultimately weighed on the constructors’ championship battle, and they intend to set up a fast car right from the start, one that can develop even though starting January 1, it will be possible to work on the new generation cars that will characterize the 2026 championship.

Lewis Hamilton hopes to find a car that isn't as temperamental as the last three he had to drive under the Mercedes banner. We'll see if Ferrari's technicians can succeed in this endeavor and if the difficulties the British champion faced last year were truly technical and not, as critics claim, due to a driver on the decline.

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