“Diva”-Like Challenger Forces Lewis Hamilton to Dejectedly Shift Focus Onto ‘Happier’ Future

That’s it, folks! The 2023 Brazilian GP has officially given us the most action-packed sprint weekend of the year. First, it was Friday’s qualifying that made things interesting. Then it was the sprint-shootout which hinted at an extremely competitive grid. As the timer ended for SQ3, there was only half a second between Lando Norris who qualified pole, and Oscar Piastri in 10th. Amidst the weather storm on Friday and the claustrophobic qualifying grid for the sprint race, the fans were eagerly waiting for the lights to go out.

And when they did, it gave us 24 laps of complete chaos, with drivers venturing out on questionable racing lines to make some risky overtakes! However, the second leg of the sprint followed Friday’s qualifying shenanigans. The track conditions did a u-turn on the drivers once again, sparking tire degradation woes for the teams. However, no team suffered as much as Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton.

Lewis Hamilton calls it quits on the W14 after the Brazilian GP Sprint Race

The sprint race was not for the faint-hearted LH fans, as the seven-time champion was off to a rough start when the lights went out. Maintaining P4, Hamilton struggled to mimic Russell’s brilliant overtake on Lando Norris which left him in the clutches of Sergio Perez. Whilst Hamilton was keeping up in the start, the W14’s drawbacks came to haunt him once again.

Earlier, Hamilton had complained after the sprint shootout that although he had given his best, the car gave up on him in Turn 12, causing his steering to snap. To make it worse for Mercedes’ 2023 challenger, the Briton’s patience was wearing thin after the sprint race. Hamilton’s tire drop-off was so intense that Carlos Sainz, the man who was holding up much of the grid, came within three-tenths of the W14 at the checkered flag.

What makes it worse is the fact that race had been a lap longer, Daniel Ricciardo would have also hunted the seven-time champion down. Hamilton was visibly distraught after the race, he shared “Only a couple more races with this car then it’s gone so I’ll be happy.”

After Mercedes had horrible luck during the Miami GP qualifying, Toto Wolff and Co. were left scratching their heads as to what was wrong with the W14. In an attempt to ditch the zero-pod concept which plagued them with porpoising, they had to run the car on a softer set-up – sacrificing traction and stability. Manifesting the unfortunate Brazilian GP sprint, Wolff had a title for the Miami GP trouble-maker, “Weekends with the Sprint are not the best for us, precisely because the car is such a ‘diva.’”

READ MORE: “Poor From Mercedes Today”: Lewis Hamilton’s “Dreadful” Race Leaves Fans Blaming Toto Wolff & Co

It’s safe to say that Mercedes‘ 2023 challenger has been the source of many headaches within the Brackley outfit. Defying everything that the team stands for, the W14 has been relentless in its inconsistency, sending the team on a rollercoaster of hopes and disappointments throughout the season.

Will the 2024 Mercedes Challenger make up for the W14’s flaws?

While the W14 has been a constant troublemaker for Mercedes, it has one trick up its sleeve. In a sport fuelled by innovation and learning from your mistakes, the W14 serves as the perfect canvas for its successor. While the team had shifted focus to next year’s car, the current chassis received its final update at the US GP. An update after which Lewis Hamilton has come back alive.

However, the team is well aware of how unreliable the W14’s setup can be on certain tracks. Mercedes’ trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin, was quoted by RacingNews365 on the importance of these updates. He shared, “If we look at the performance in Austin and Mexico, being able to race cars like McLaren and Ferrari effectively, we’d say that the track data is certainly suggesting that we’ve made a forward step.” Whilst the Brazilian Sprint race may not have played out in Mercedes’ favor, the fact that the last two weekends were brilliant is no fluke.

“The other thing is we collect a lot of data off the car”, Shovlin added. He expressed the importance of the US GP update for what they have in mind for the next season, “That’s crucial for next year because this floor is actually a step in the development direction that we want to take for 2024.”

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Putting aside the Brazilian GP sprint race, Lewis Hamilton has shown that even when the car isn’t up to the mark, he can deliver tantalizing performances. With the Mercedes engineers confident in their assessment of the 2024 challenger, the sprint race drama may be forgotten sooner than we expect.