Mercedes and Hamilton find closure as Russell steps up

All things considered, 2024 was something of a funny year for Mercedes. 

On-track, it had its most successful year in the ground-effects era with four grand prix wins, scored 59 more points than it did in a winless 2023, but yet, it slipped to fourth in the constructors', its worst-showing since a fifth-place finish in 2012.

The season was somewhat overshadowed by the Lewis Hamilton farewell tour, but in a moment of closure for both team and driver, that elusive 104th, and indeed 105th career win, was finally achieved. 

But as the most successful driver-team partnership in grand prix history draws to a close, Mercedes is looking towards its future, with Andrea Kimi Antonelli selected to replace Hamilton.

It also means for the first time at Mercedes, George Russell is clear number one and team leader - a new position for him after a season he broke from Hamilton's shadow and made his case to be a title challenger in the right conditions. 

This is the story of Mercedes' 2024 season. 

The car

The W15 machine created for the 2024 season was an important car for Mercedes. 

It had doubled down on its zero sidepod concept from 2022 with the launch spec of the '23 car, but it quickly became clear that this was the wrong philosophy for these rules, with conventional sidepods retrofitted in a Monaco GP upgrade. 

However, that car remained a bodge-job as fundamental architecture changes, such as the gripe Hamilton had with the position of the cockpit, could not be changed in-season and had to wait for the W15.

By the time it broke cover, Hamilton had already announced the bombshell news that he was off to Ferrari for 2025, having exercised a break clause in his contract, leading to a guessing game of who would be his replacement. 

Despite Toto Wolff turning on the charm offensive, Max Verstappen would not be budged from Red Bull, with Antonelli finally being unveiled at the Italian GP in September. 

In many ways though, the W15 was perhaps the most confusing Mercedes of the trio of ground effect cars.

With the W13 and W14, the immediate over-riding problem was clear, and tackling this consumed most of Mercedes' brain-power, leaving the intricacies of set-up and the like to the side. The W15 filled in these knowledge gaps.

When the car was fast, it was legitimately fast with three of the four grand prix wins scooped done so through legitimate pace with the car being the best on the day, but it had a terribly fine operating window, preferring cool, cold, green track conditions. Any semblance of heat and a grippy track meant the car fell away to be fourth best.

Understanding why the car is so quick in one set of conditions but why this cannot be replicated across a variety of them is of the utmost importance over the winter for Brackley. The ingredients are there for Mercedes, but it needs to find a way to mix them together correctly.

The drivers

After out-performing Hamilton in 2022, Russell had something of a growing year in '23, with only two podiums and a lot of head-scratching. 

But he comprehensively drubbed Hamilton through the year, finishing 15-9 ahead in both qualifying and races. 

It was a year where he showed he can be the team leader and went through the full repertoire required, including wheel-to-wheel racing, being in the right place to scoop up wins when it all goes wrong for the leaders (Austria), crushing the field across a weekend and becoming a figure-head.

Although, if we're being picky, there was maybe one too many crashes throughout the year, something he must cut out moving forward. 

And then we have Hamilton. 

His final action as a Mercedes driver was to swing around the outside of Russell on the final lap in Abu Dhabi after a vintage charge to take fourth. 

It rounded off a season which had more downs than ups with Hamilton cutting a figure who could not wait to leave at some points, especially in Brazil, but the highs were mighty.

For Hamilton and Mercedes, the 83rd win of the partnership was perhaps the most important. This was his victory in the British Grand Prix, some 945 days after his 82nd on December 5th, 2021 in Saudi Arabia. 

It was a cathartic moment for team and driver, scared forever by what happened that night in Abu Dhabi, with the pain of the next two years watching Verstappen win for fun like salt in the red raw wounds. 

This was the true end of the Hamilton-Mercedes dynasty, but as one chapter closes, the next will be written as Antonelli steps up to help lead Mercedes' future. Hamilton is now the past.