Mercedes are going to do things completely differently in 2024. The W15 will look nothing like the W13 and W14. With this new philosophy, the German formation should be able to fight for the world title again. Lewis Hamilton is confident of considerable progression from his team, although he knows the pressure is immense.

Hamilton is asked by GP Racing if it is possible to start all over again and get close to Red Bull Racing with that design, which has a two-season lead in that respect. “It’s not as easy as that. You have to try and take the good parts and, through trial and error, try to add other parts,” the seven-time world champion responded.

Hamilton knows it will be a tough task. Still, it is not entirely out of the question that there is something revolutionary on the W15 that they did not think of or dare not introduce at Red Bull. “But you can imagine Red Bull are also nervous of making too big a change and it being the wrong one. We need to be, consistently, week-on-week, adding performance. We have higher targets than ever before because we have a massive gap to catch. That makes it really tricky.”

The last time Hamilton won a race was in 2021 in Saudi Arabia. For Mercedes’ last win, we have to go back to Brazil in 2022, when George Russell crossed the line first at Interlagos on Sunday. The pressure to end this negative run is high across the entire team.

“A huge amount [of pressure],” agreed Hamilton in the magazine. “Ultimately, as a boss like Toto, you have to start leaning on people more rather than backing off on them. 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?”