Wolff warns Hamilton and Mercedes team: 'Not many good ones left'
F1 News
Lewis Hamilton has just seven Grand Prix weekends left with Mercedes, and boss Toto Wolff has warned the German team is running out of "good" tracks in the 2024 Formula 1 season. Mercedes was the in-form team before the summer break, but they've struggled since the action resumed in late August.
Mercedes won three out of the four races prior to the summer break but have only managed one podium since then. That podium came at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix because George Russell was promoted up the order due to the crash between Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz. Hamilton is starting his last few months as a Mercedes driver. The Brit joined the team for the 2013 Formula 1 season and enjoyed plenty of success.
After Russell won the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix, Wolff promised Hamilton at least one more victory during his time at Mercedes. That win came just one round later at Silverstone, ending Hamilton's near 1,000-day dry spell. The seven-time World Champion crossed the finish line in second at Spa but took home the 1st-place trophy when his teammate was disqualified. Wolff sees McLaren and Ferrari improve over the recent weeks and suggests there aren't many more races where he believes Mercedes will be strong enough to compete right at the front.
"[Where we were] traditionally fast was Barcelona, Silverstone, Spa at times. What's the next one that’s coming? Austin was a good one for us, Brazil was a good one for us. Not so many good ones left. We feel that Austin is an opportunity," Wolff told GPblog and others in the paddock.
Wolff also sees strong competition and suggests it's not always down to circuit characteristics. "Between those eight cars, it can swing because we're not talking about tons of time. We're talking about two or three tenths either direction. Then you have an outlier like Leclerc in Baku or in Monza where they've always been strong. This is about who is getting the balance as good as possible and who is having the tyres in the right window and what kind of aero concept works well at a given track," Wolff said before looking ahead to this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix.
"Ferrari was really strong there [Singapore] last year, so I have no doubt that it's the third in the row where they can race for the win. Red Bull wasn't last year. We were doing okay. McLaren was doing okay. So it's four teams now that are very close," Wolff foreshadowed.
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