Hamilton's British GP win was the true end of Mercedes relationship

It is a partnership that will go down as one of the most iconic in Formula 1 history, akin to Jim Clark and Lotus, Ayrton Senna and McLaren or Michael Schumacher and Ferrari, but Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes era is going out with something of a whimper. 

After a dreadful Sao Paulo Grand Prix weekend where team-mate George Russell comprehensively out-performed, Hamilton labelled the weekend as "crap" and then said that the end at Mercedes could not "come soon enough."

Nearly three complete seasons into the ground-effects era, Mercedes looks as far away as it ever has of returning to the front of the field, with the W15 machine often proving on a knife-edge with minor fluctuations in track and air temperature or the ride height of the car providing wild performance swings. 

A new front wing in Canada had transformed the car into a pole position and podium contender with the team going on to win three of the four races between the Austrian and Belgian Grands Prix, including a one-two, on the track at least, at Spa before Russell was disqualified for being underweight. 

This was Hamilton's 84th Mercedes win, coming two weeks after an emotional 83rd at Silverstone to bring to an end an unfathomable drought for F1's most successful driver.

Hamilton's win at the British Grand Prix was an exercise in catharsis for driver and team alike, but it must now be considered when the Hamilton-Mercedes partnership truly ended.

Abu Dhabi.

Prior to winning at Silverstone on July 7th, 2024, Hamilton last tasted victory in the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on December 5th, 2021, a span of 945 days. 

In that time, the United Kingdom had four prime ministers - Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, two monarchs in Elizabeth II and Charles III and Max Verstappen had won 42 F1 races, three world titles and broken a host of records.

Hamilton, meanwhile, had been toiling away, scrapping for the odd podium finish as well as carrying the mental scars of what happened in the closing stages of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. 

To have what is perhaps the Mount Everest of F1 records snatched away from you through no fault of your own and through the incorrect application of the well-versed safety car restart rules by the race director will have an effect, no matter if you are Hamilton, Verstappen or even Michael Schumacher. It will have an impact.

Perhaps, if Mercedes' W13 of 2022 had gone as fast as it looked with the zero sidepod approach to the ground-effects rules, then the ghost of Abu Dhabi could have been purged with wins and podiums and being locked in another title fight. 

Instead, plagued by porpoising and a lack of rear grip, Hamilton elected to take on most of the funky set-up work as Mercedes tried all sorts to get the car into a performance window. 

For a driver who had broken most of the records in the book, to suddenly be out of contention and go winless for the first time in the 2022 campaign was a blow, which continued into '23 when the W14 was born carrying the same flawed zero sidepod concept. Again Hamilton would go winless. 

Towards the end of the season, after another dreadful performance in Brazil, he cut a figure who would rather be anywhere but at a race-track, with his season ending with an anonymous ninth in Abu Dhabi.

The cathartic ending

On February 1st, it was announced that Hamilton had triggered a break-clause in the two-year deal he signed in summer 2023 to join Ferrari for the '25 campaign.

The Mercedes farewell tour kicked off in much the same fashion as 2023 ended, with a run of result between the 2023 Mexico City and 2024 Miami Grands Prix reading 2-8-7-9-7-9-DNF-9-9-6. 

These are the results of a midfield team, but there was a flash mid-season that Mercedes might just be finally getting its act together with Hamilton claiming a first podium in 13 races in Spain.

After Russell inherited victory in Austria after the Verstappen-Lando Norris collision, he took pole for the British GP with Hamilton second, but would ultimately retire with a water leak. 

Clever strategy in the mixed Silverstone conditions allowed Hamilton to taste victory for the first time in the ground effects era, as he revealed the battles he had faced.

"It's been really challenging, a difficult time since 2021 and then coming back in with a car that we've not been able to fight with for the last couple of years," he said. 

"I think just it's been incredibly mentally challenging. I think for everyone in the team, but I think just knowing how hard everyone's continued to work, knowing how I've managed just to keep my head in it.

"Then with everything that's happened this year as well, with so many emotions this year, obviously announcing that I'm leaving and at the same time starting with a car that we didn't feel that we could win with to then finally be in a place where we win and not only that but at the British Grand Prix in front of my home crowd. 

"Honestly, it's the most incredible honour to be standing on the top of the podium and hearing the national anthem with the King's name in it, for example. It's the first time I've had that."

And now the end is near

The out-pouring of emotion was not limited to Hamilton but also race engineer Peter Bonington whose usual radio call of "get in there, Lewis" was a decibel or two higher than normal as Toto Wolff also celebrated. 

Returning Hamilton to the top-step of the podium, in his home grand prix as he also broke the record for most wins at a single grand prix, was the catharsis both driver and team needed.

It did not right the perceived wrongs of Abu Dhabi, only a championship could do that, but it was the feel-good story Hamilton badly needed. 

Although he would have 12 more races with Mercedes, including that inherited Spa win, this was the final iconic moment of his Mercedes career, the partnership on which an entire generation of F1 fans had grown up on.