Mercedes W15's recent gains favour Hamilton's driving style

Lewis Hamilton's recent form surge with Mercedes' W15 has outpaced teammate George Russell, according to the team's trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.

The German manufacturer's 2024 challenger, after a rocky start, has now claimed victory in three of the last four races.

Early season struggles

Mercedes faced significant challenges at the season's outset, with the W15 proving inconsistent and operating within a narrow performance window.

This instability particularly affected Hamilton, who found himself struggling against Russell in the opening races.

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

Shovlin explained.

"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."

The team's early-season woes were compounded by the car's sensitivity to minor setup changes. Shovlin noted,

"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."

Unlocking performance

As Mercedes gradually unlocked the W15's potential, the car has made significant strides towards the front of the grid.

This improvement has coincided with Hamilton's ability to extract more performance from the chassis, narrowing the gap to Russell.

The current generation of ground-effect cars and tyres present a unique challenge for Hamilton's driving style, particularly in braking zones where the seven-time world champion traditionally excels.

However, Shovlin believes that as the car's performance has improved, both drivers are now seeking similar characteristics from the W15.

"There's a certain driving style that suits these tyres,"

Shovlin said.

"You tend to find that the two drivers are never that far apart on set-up now. Once the car's in a good window, the same thing's working pretty well for both of them."

Collaborative approach

Despite their on-track rivalry, Hamilton and Russell have worked together to overcome the W15's early-season deficiencies.

Shovlin praised their collaborative efforts:

"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."

The frustration of narrowly missing out on higher grid positions in the early races has given way to a more positive outlook as the team's development efforts bear fruit.

"In the first bit of the year, a lot of it was quite frustrating, because we were finishing fifth, sixth, seventh, and often you'd see that with just another tenth of performance we'd have been three places up the grid,"

Shovlin reflected.