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Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have been found wanting as the former world champions have made the worst start to a season in more than a decade.
Heading into the 2024 season, the German team had momentum on their side as they finished P3 and P2 in the Constructor's Championship in the last two seasons and were a podium-contending team.
But they have only scored 52 points from five races and a Sprint, with their best result coming in the Chinese GP Sprint courtesy of Lewis Hamilton's P2.
The points tally is only their worst start in the three seasons of the new regulations but since the 2012 season, where they scored 43 points. However, by this point in 2012, they scored a victory in China and were in contention for high-scoring points but suffered due to poor reliability and driver mistakes.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are a long way off from the team's glory days in 2019 and 2020 when they scored 217 and 180 points, respectively, and won the championships comprehensively.
Mercedes team boss breaks down Lewis Hamilton's race in China
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff stated that the seven-time world champion got no advantage of starting on the soft tires as there wasn't any additional grip off the line.
As per PlanetF1, the Austrian said:
“I think the car is difficult, a difficult car to set up and a difficult car to drive. That’s why you have these oscillations in performances, in my opinion. I think where Lewis’ car [was] today was certainly far, far away from the optimum and then it’s just driving on the knife’s edge. So what is it?
“This is where we are. Let’s see for Miami, we were bringing some new bits, which are interesting to see how they’re going to perform on the car.”
Lewis Hamilton concurred with his team boss and reflected:
“I was the only one, I think, on the soft and it fell apart after Lap 1. It was very difficult. I thought maybe, at the beginning, I tapped someone because I’ve never had so much understeer in my life. I was turning in at low speed and just waiting, waiting, waiting and so I thought maybe I had damaged something."
The German team need to make a quick turnaround in the 2024 season and would hope that the new upgrade package for Miami GP could prove to be a new page this year.
