Hamilton interview: How Mercedes lost and found its Northern Star in 2023

If it was remarkable that Lewis Hamilton had a first winless season in Formula 1 in 2022, it was perhaps unthinkable that his victory drought would extend for at least another 12 months. A combination of Red Bull producing the utterly dominant RB19, allied to Mercedes stumbling at the first hurdle with the design of its W14, left Hamilton treading water in 2023 as Max Verstappen roared to his third straight drivers’ crown.

From the outside Hamilton’s 2023 campaign appears to be little better than the previous year, but the dynamics within his Mercedes team have been different. Some of this has been a positive – in Mercedes wasting no time in committing to a new car concept and unlocking potential from that, rather than flogging a dead horse and sticking with a design that was clearly going nowhere.

But equally, there were some challenging moments on the way – especially when the reality of its W14 underperforming immediately hit home despite Hamilton having warned of risks with certain development directions.

“I'm sure there were frustrations, because I had asked for certain changes and they clearly weren't done,” said Hamilton, reflecting on those tough initial days when Mercedes realised it was on the wrong path. “There were definitely frustrating moments. But that's how it goes when you're working.

“Everyone's emotions are high, and everyone is still working so hard. It's just not coming to us. It gets frustrating at some points, but then you have just got to channel that energy towards working. There's nothing you can do except work towards trying to improve it.”

It took very little time for Hamilton’s 2023 title hopes to come crashing down. Already by the first day of testing in Bahrain, Mercedes knew that it had positioned its aero platform in the wrong place.

While others had been aggressive in chasing the golden downforce that comes from running cars super low to the ground, Mercedes had taken a more cautious approach and aimed to run its car higher up. The reality of its misstep bit immediately.

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“I remember being in the garage...just trying to think,” recalls Hamilton, when asked about his feelings at that moment. “I remember having bouncing still. I remember it feeling exactly the same, and it definitely was not a great feeling. I really had high hopes. You train through the winter and when you see everyone working at the factory, you think it is going in the right way.

“In February, when we do a download of where the car is going, I was a little bit more apprehensive compared to the previous year, because the previous year it was like: the car is amazing, it's so unique, no one's going to have anything like it. And then we got to the first test...

“So, the next year, I was a little bit more cautious when I was listening, and I was like: ‘we will see.’ And then the car had all these problems. So, I just knew that it was going to be a long year.”

"We didn't have a North Star necessarily at the beginning of the year, knowing exactly where we needed to work towards" Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton quickly accepted the reality that the team was going to be stuck for a while with what it had – and somehow, he had to help it dig itself out of the hole it had got itself into.

“I think like in the previous year, there were big, big talks,” he said about the response. “It was kind of like: you're just trying to find and come up with solutions all the time. No one knew exactly what the problem was, no one knew how to fix it. And so, I was probably trying to do more than my job. I was trying everything on the car.

“There was no consistency. That's why the weekends were so up and down because I was trying everything. I think this year was more balanced.

“I think having the experience of the previous year, I think I just applied myself in terms of just digging down, and sitting with the guys. We were having much better meetings and just were able to stay a lot more positive during the year. It was like, ‘we know it's going to be a long season, but let's not give up. Let's keep pushing towards getting the maximum out of the car, whatever that may be.’”

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Hamilton "knew it was going to be a long year" from the pre-season test in Bahrain

That there were similar performance issues for a second season meant Hamilton knew that there was little point implementing a repeat of the bold experiments that he conducted through much of 2022 in the quest for answers. The W14’s problems ran much deeper than that.

“I did a lot less of that experimental stuff this year because ultimately it's really just about car characteristics,” he said. “You could change 100 things, but it doesn't really change the fact that the aero package is wrong.

“Sometimes it was in the window, a lot of the time it was out the window. And no matter what settings, or car set-up changes you make, whether it's mechanical, roll stiffness, all those sorts of different things, you can't overpower the aero characteristics and through corner balance.

“So, what I did was just spent more time at the factory, having meetings with all of the key heads of the different departments and trying to keep them positive. Because if you imagine for them, no one feels great. And it can be demoralising.

“So just really talking to them. Saying, ‘okay, we can do this, this is the area that we have a problem, this is what we've got to work towards.’ I would just help, and try to be positive with them. I was looking at other cars, and I was asking just lots and lots of questions just to stimulate ideas. But ultimately just letting them do their jobs.

“We didn't have a North Star necessarily at the beginning of the year, knowing exactly where we needed to work towards. And it's been kind of a zigzag line trying to frickin’ get to where we need to be. Every now and then something positive happens, you're like, 'Okay, that's it.' And then it shifts, so the goalpost is always moving, which is typical.”

Mercedes changed path both on and off the track this year. Its new car concept arrived at the Monaco Grand Prix, while behind the scenes there were some infrastructure changes.

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Technical director Mike Elliott briefly stepped back from his position in April, swapping places with chief technical officer James Allison before departing the team entirely towards the end of the campaign. Allison’s return to frontline duties was hailed as a significant move for the squad, in it giving itself the talisman leader that organisations sometimes need to march themselves forward with.

While Hamilton welcomed the return of Allison to frontline duties, he is quick to dispel rumours that floated around that the change of tech boss was something he had pushed for.

“I think it’s important for people to know that I wasn’t a part at all in Mike’s departure,” he said. “I’d known Mike since I was at McLaren, and I had a great relationship with Mike. When I was at McLaren, I was in awe of him, just because he’s so smart and I was just learning so much from him. When I asked him about the car, there was nothing I could ever ask him that he didn’t have an answer for.

"James [Allison] has got that leader mentality, more than I think any other engineer I’ve come across. He’d be at the front with the sword saying, ‘let’s go’ and go into the fire" Lewis Hamilton

“But what’s always difficult for someone in his position - and I remember this at McLaren – is it often falls on them, but it’s a collective. Everybody, all these pieces coming together, it’s not just one person. There unfortunately may be people in the outside world who think it’s one individual’s fault. But it never is.”

While supportive of Elliott, Hamilton was equally jubilant at Allison being back on the frontline.

“James, he has got that leader mentality, more than I think any other engineer I’ve come across,” he explained. “He’d be at the front with the sword saying, ‘let’s go’ and go into the fire.

“I think he does instil massive confidence in people. He’s so eloquent in how he speaks. He delivers speeches to the team, week-in, week-out. He’s great. Great with emails. Telling everyone how it is, and what we’ve got to do, and it galvanises the whole team. I’m really happy that he’s back and he’s inspired to get back in.

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Mike Elliott left Mercedes midway through the season

“I know where he was previously, he wasn’t inspired to keep going because he’d been doing it so long. So, it’s cool that’s he’s come back, and he’s driven, and I think our friendship is in a better place than ever before.”

Through all the challenges, Mercedes did make progress throughout 2023. There was a pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix, and in Austin Hamilton was able to put Verstappen under a bit of pressure – even if ultimately he would later lose his second position because of a plank infringement.

But amid the positive signs, there was a reality that the W15 car will be so different that it is hard to read too much into hopes for 2024 based on developments going on this year. One thing is clear though: there is little scope for Mercedes to get things wrong for a third year in a row.

Asked how much pressure team boss Toto Wolff was under, Hamilton responds quickly: “A huge amount for sure. Not just Toto, but globally, all of us. Everyone back at the factory, a huge amount of pressure on them.

“Ultimately, as a boss like Toto, you have to start leaning on people more rather than backing off on them. And how you do that is not easy, as people break at a certain point. So how do you do it in a constructive way, in a way that’s inspiring them to continue?

“For me, hopefully some of the race results and drives that I’ve been able to put in, I like to think that sparks inspiration for the guys: like ‘oh we’re almost there’, and that trickles down through the whole system. That, ‘oh he’s still got it’, means if we work hard and we give him the car he’s going to take us there. That’s what I strive to be able to try to do.”

What the Austin upgrade did deliver, at least, was a belief that improvements to the car were now delivering anticipated progress on track – which was good news as thoughts shifted towards 2024. From being lost at sea during the early months with both of its two ground effect cars, Hamilton thinks things are now moving in the right direction – and crucially it knows where it should be heading.

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“Yes, I do believe we have a North Star now, which I don't think we've had for two years,” he said. “But still getting there is not a straight line. There were just certain things, decisions that have been made, that just left you blocked at the end of a road, and you can't do anything, because of the cost cap and all these different things.

“If you look at the Red Bull, and they've done an amazing job, but from Bahrain last year, they had a bouncing issue and fixed it that week.

“It is like if you're trying to build a wall. It was one brick after the other: brick, brick, brick. Just development, development, development. Maybe they added something, and it didn't add performance, but they were still building.

"Hopefully some of the race results and drives that I’ve been able to put in, I like to think that sparks inspiration for the guys: like ‘oh we’re almost there’, and that trickles down through the whole system" Lewis Hamilton

“For us, we had to knock down the wall. We had a lot of aero on that first car last year, but we had to basically knock a ton of downforce off it and then slowly tried to add it. But every time we tried to add it, it was worse. We just didn't improve for a long, long, long time.

“So, you can imagine they [Red Bull] are progressing. And we're going like this [he indicated a near flat line]. Then eventually, it's slowly coming up while they're continuing. So that gap...we are just on massively different trajectories. But I think we understand the car so much better now. We have developed great tools in the background.

“So naturally, I'm hopeful. But I'm not going to hold my breath.”

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