The Brackley team believes Hamilton has benefited more from the upgrades on the W15 than teammate George Russell.

The German manufacturers endured a tricky start to their 2024 campaign, with its W15 being inconsistent and having a narrow set-up window.

However, the team has improved the W15 massively as the season has gone on. Hamilton and Russell both have more leeway for their set-ups, resulting in the car fighting for race wins and pole positions.

The Brackley team has won three of the last four races. The step forward in progress has allowed Hamilton to become more comfortable, benefiting more than Russell. The seven-time world champion struggled comapred to his teammate throughout the early stages of the season.

More familiar with the characteristics of the W15

Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin believes Hamilton’s form is much better now because he was previously struggling with the W15’s characteristics at the start of the season:

“I think early on, perhaps Lewis was finding the car more difficult to deal with.

“One of the areas that we’ve improved with the car is being able to land with a set-up in P1 that is a good foundation to start building on performance, and then fine-tuning it. That helps your weekend enormously.”

“In the early part of the year, we were making relatively small changes, and suddenly the whole car balance left us, and we were really struggling.

“And, yeah, it’s probably fair to say that in the earlier races, Lewis was finding it more difficult to set up than George.”

Hamiton not suited to ground-effect cars

The ground-effect cars were introduced as a major regulation change in 2022. Since then, Mercedes has struggled to compete for race wins and pole positions – until the latter stages of the first half of 2024.

Hamilton and his team are aware that the ground-effect cars and tyres don’t suit the 39-year-old’s driving style – he cannot use his full braking potential.

However, since Mercedes has unlocked more speed from the W15, Shovlin says that both drivers are demanding similar things from it.

“There’s a certain driving style that suits these tyres,” he said. “You tend to find that the two drivers are never that far apart on set-up now.

“So once the car’s in a good window, the same thing’s working pretty well for both of them. And between sessions, they’re studying what the other one’s doing to try to find where the gains are.

“But through the year, the two of them have been working together. Early on, neither of them wanted to be finishing where we were, and they were able to help each other through trying different experiments with set-up and driving style. Overall, you progress as a team, and that’s how a team with two drivers works.”

Mercedes are on the hunt to close the gap to the top three teams in the constructors’ championship. The Silver Arrows are on 266 points – 79 points behind Ferrari in third.