Lewis Hamilton told “excuses must stop - decision-making has to be questioned”
Concern shared that Lewis Hamilton's tinkering with set-up could impact Mercedes' long-term development
Lewis Hamilton has been told his “excuses must stop”.
The Mercedes driver saw last weekend’s F1 Chinese Grand Prix deteriorate as he made set-up changes to his W15.
Hamilton excellent in sprint qualifying and in the sprint race before, he said, making “making changes” to his car before an error ruined qualifying for the grand prix.
He started from 18th and finished in P9, but has now been questioned by a former F1 technical director.
Gary Anderson - who most notably worked at the Jordan F1 team - wrote in The Telegraph that Hamilton’s “excuses must stop at some point”.
Hamilton was warned that Mercedes have “a fundamental problem” and “no amount of set-up changes will fix it”.
So, Hamilton’s desperate search for a tweak which will take him to the front of F1 is destined to fail, Anderson wrote.
More concerningly, the ex-F1 car designer insisted that the “decision-making process on Hamilton’s side of the garage has to be questioned”.
It was noted that Hamilton took responsibility for the set-up changes to his car, but it was questioned who was involved.
A group including “key engineers” and perhaps even team principal Toto Wolff should have been involved, Anderson insists.
He also claimed that changes to the W15 are “probably not as wild as [Hamilton] would have us believe”.
The three small areas of significant change to ground-effect era F1 cars were listed as “ride height, spring stiffness and front and rear wing aerodynamic balance”.
And Hamilton was reminded that no set-up change will greatly improve a car’s fundamental base-line, but they could drastically misalign its balance.
Hamilton “does not seem willing to accept the reality” of the W15 and is being led “astray” by set-up tweaks, Anderson wrote.
His tinkering will impact the Mercedes in 2025 and beyond, when Hamilton will no longer be with the team, it has been warned.
Constant changes means a base-line can never be reliably trusted.
And without credible data to take to the wind tunnel, the direction for future development can become muddled.
Hamilton, in his final year with Mercedes, was finally told to “look and learn” from teammate George Russell in order to finish as the team’s best driver this season.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
