© Stephen Reuss for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
By Carol M. Creasey
During the week before the Spanish Grand Prix, news broke that an email had been circulating within the F1 community accusing Mercedes of sabotaging Lewis Hamilton‘s efforts this year.
It mentioned his tyres, and his position within the team, and also stated that it was affecting his mental health. It is quite clear to any normal fan that no team would ever sabotage their driver, as they want to get as many points as they can, so it’s definitely not in their interest to do this. They also accused Mercedes of favouring George Russell, but understandably with Lewis departing at the end of the year to go to Ferrari, and George staying on, they will have no choice but to exclude Lewis from meetings later on so that he does not have knowledge of any data that would help another team.
Toto Wolff was extremely angry about this email, and the allegations. He has always held Lewis in high regard, both as a work colleague and a friend, so his response was to call the police in to try and work out who was the perpetrator. The sender claimed he / she was a member of the Mercedes team, which was denied by Toto, but they are clearly paranoid, and one would hope that true fans of Lewis would not even give the comments any credibility. Lewis himself has called for unity, asking the fans to unite to give Mercedes the support they need, and he has completely refuted all the claims.
Now, onto the race. It was believed that the Spanish circuit would suit Red Bull, so they were expected to once again be dominant, and beat all other teams. Mercedes were not sure whether their improvement in Montreal was track specific, or whether it would also put them further up the order in Barcelona. Free Practice 1 was uneventful with Russell finishing P4 and Lewis P7. But in Free Practice 2 Lewis led the way posting the fastest lap of anybody.
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By the time they reached Qualifying, he was stating how nice the car was to drive, and it appeared his confidence in it was growing. After a very tight qualifying, Norris took a brilliant pole, and Verstappen was 2nd. Lewis came 3rd, his best qualifying position since 2021, and Russell, who was very close, was 4th. Lewis was in a very buoyant mood after the session, and he credited the team with all the hard work they had been doing to improve the car. He vowed to do his utmost to try and win on Sunday, and said he hoped that he could work with Russell to attack the cars in front.
On race day it was bright and sunny for the start. Lewis had a bad start, he said he lost power briefly, meanwhile Russell flew off the line, and then got a slipstream from Verstappen and Norris, which propelled him into 1st place. Lewis was almost swallowed up by the Ferraris behind, but just managed to hang onto 4th place. A lap later, Verstappen overtook Russell. Norris was behind him, but after pitting he managed to put in times one second a lap faster, and Russell dropped to 3rd place. There were no safety cars in the race, it all came down to tyre wear. When Russell went in for his second pit stop, he was given hard tyres because he had already worn his soft tyres out. Lewis pitted on lap 44 for soft tyres and after overtaking Sainz he set his sights on his team mate. After overtaking him, he pulled out a lead of over 5 seconds on him, and claimed the final place on the podium.
This was Lewis’ first finish on the podium for 2024, his face was wreathed in smiles, and the cheers from the fans were loud. He thanked them all for their support, and also his team for all the hard work they had put in to improve the car. Mercedes have stated that they intend to keep adding updates on the car, and Lewis said how much nicer the car was now to drive, and how they really hope to keep improving. His aim of course is to finish on the top of the podium before he leaves Mercedes.
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