The pessimism started from the opening laps of testing in Bahrain and only got stronger as the days went by. Mercedes had endured an agonising two years of underperformance; false dawns and porpoising ruining any hopes of conquering the 2022 regulations that had brought ground-effect cars and a huge emphasis on downforce.
The team were relatively optimistic throughout the winter, solving several underlying issues and seeing promising signs on the simulator. That did not materialise on the track after arriving in Bahrain, however.
Four months on, Mercedes have registered back-to-back race victories and at Silverstone they had the quickest car, at times, as Lewis Hamilton took the chequered flag. So what has changed?
James Allison, the Mercedes technical director, summed up their progress during the Canadian Grand Prix in early June. “We’ve gone from being really embarrassingly crap, or not good enough, in the beginning of the year to being near the fight.”
It was painful for Mercedes to watch McLaren, their customer team who use Mercedes engines, outperform them — to have found such performance that took them from the back of the grid to the front of it and claiming victory in Miami, a first race victory for Lando Norris.
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As Norris celebrated in Miami, Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, used the race as an example. With the present generation of cars progress can be difficult, but if you can find the correct upgrade path, huge swathes of performance can be found.
For two years, Mercedes had been searching for their “eureka!” moment, or a silver bullet to fix their problems. They swung from success in low-speed corners, to performance in high speed, never quite able to balance the two.
In the end, the solution was less dramatic. “This is more of an ‘Oh God, how could we have been so dumb?’ type of moment, where you see the path forward and you should have seen it sooner,” Allison said.
The front wing introduced on George Russell’s car in Monaco — and both cars since — has helped to address the balance that was lacking and, despite rumours of discontent from other teams, has continually been found to meet FIA criteria.
It has meant that both Russell and Hamilton now have the ability to push harder and drive on the limit, because they have trust in the car to behave the way it is expected to, rather than having unpredictable understeer or oversteer, as it had in the past.
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“There was a moment where, led by James, suddenly the data made sense — mainly the way we balanced the car and how we could bring that sweet spot,” Wolff said. “That was the main thing. It wasn’t a miracle front wing, it was more the balance that we achieved.”
First, the porpoising — a bouncing motion that caused a lack of performance and gave their drivers back pain — was mostly eradicated after the second race of the season in Saudi Arabia.
Then Mercedes became a consistent force, and finally a challenger for podium finishes, overcoming Ferrari who, having shown early-season promise, now have porpoising problems of their own. Max Verstappen and Norris were a significant way ahead, but when they collided in Austria, Russell was there to pick up the victory.
Russell’s surprise that they were within 12 or 13 seconds of the pair sounded like a backhanded compliment, but it showed how far Mercedes had come in a short space of time. While they were combatting on-track issues, they were also navigating the drawn-out farewell of a legend.
Hamilton’s surprise announcement of his departure to Ferrari on the eve of the season was keenly felt, not only because of his talent and skill but also the genuine depth of his friendship with Wolff and several other senior members of the team.
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Would he have made the move to Ferrari had he known Mercedes would finally unlock their performance? The curt one-word answer from Hamilton at Silverstone was “yes”. The feeling is that the move was made in readiness for the regulation changes in 2026 and that Ferrari could be best placed to take advantage of those.
Since Abu Dhabi in 2021, when Hamilton lost the world title in such dramatic circumstances in the final race to Verstappen, there have been moments he has doubted his ability, while Wolff has also been frustrated at the lack of success the team have had since, hoping he could be the one to deliver his driver a record eighth world title.
In the end, he delivered a car that could at least help Hamilton to his first race win in 945 days. As Ferrari’s gamble backfired (again) to switch tyre compounds early, and McLaren asked Norris to decide whether to cover off Hamilton or Verstappen without the relevant data in front of him, Peter Bonnington’s brilliance came to the fore.
The 49-year-old race engineer known as “Bono” is a close friend of Hamilton, as well as the calming voice that has accompanied so many of his wins. “Bono is my partner in crime,” Hamilton said after his Silverstone victory. “He has been with me since 2013, it is the longest driver-engineer pairing. We’ve had loads of ups and downs, Bono has been through so much in his personal life, and we’ve stuck together through it all.
“Every day he turns up and sits by my side and works with me. I always feel safe when I know Bono is on the radio to me.”
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The pair were in tears as Hamilton crossed the line and ensured that Bono would be on the podium with him to collect the constructor’s trophy. In the crucial final stint, when Hamilton and the team elected to use the soft tyre, their degradation was considerably lower than McLaren and Norris, who squandered second to Verstappen.
In the crucial moments Hamilton’s experience comes to the fore, but he and Bono had also discussed the balance on the first stint, using that feedback to tweak the set-up to protect the front end where degradation was more severe.
In the glory days, a message from Bono telling his driver it was “hammer time” would almost always result in victory. This time the words were different, a hint of emotion in a simple command, conveying just how much Mercedes — and Hamilton — had been through. “OK Lewis, this is our time,” Bono said.
