Mercedes would want to forget the Australian GP double DNF result as soon as possible. The Silver Arrows were very bullish in the lead-up to this race but it all backfired for them. One of the main reasons was that the team tried experimenting with the setups of the W15 a bit too much. Toto Wolff admitted to the same as well. Meanwhile, even Lewis Hamilton was not a happy man after the race, citing that this has been the worst start to a season for him. However, Wolff feels that they need to keep experimenting to find the right direction with the brand-new 2024 car, but it is Hamilton who is bearing the brunt of this experimentation.
Speaking to Fox Sports Australia, Wolff said, “We are coming to a point now where we probably need to experiment every single race, not only on Friday because our performance seems to get worse throughout the weekend.”
During FP2 on Friday, Wolff admitted that they had experimented with different setups on both cars. As per RaceFans, he mentioned, “[We’ve] gone through a really quite dramatic set-up change on Lewis’ [car] and that has massively backfired”.
On the other hand, it went well with George Russell’s W15 but the 26-year-old too lacked some performance. Overall, Mercedes is probably trying too many things at a time to hone in on the car to discover the ideal setup. Therefore, they aren’t able to zero in on a particular direction and get the car in the right window, something both drivers have admitted.
Is Lewis Hamilton going to switch his focus to Ferrari sooner amid Mercedes struggles?
Mercedes seem to have missed the mark for the third consecutive season with the new ground-effect cars in 2024. Lewis Hamilton is naturally frustrated with the performance deficit. However, given this is his last season at the Silver Arrows, will he now switch his focus over to Ferrari?
The seven-time champion does not seem like an individual to resign from making efforts and take a back seat. And after being in the thick of things at Mercedes for over a decade, he most likely won’t want to pull the plug on his association earlier than he is supposed to.
Still, it most likely will depend upon how badly Mercedes slip up and how much they can recover in the 2024 season. Most likely, the Briton will want Ferrari to prosper and set themselves up well for next year.
But at the same time, he would want to end his stint with Mercedes on a high. Currently, it seems very unlikely. So Hamilton may look to think about his Ferrari future more and perhaps write off this season if Mercedes cannot improve much.
