Lewis Hamilton’s telling Mercedes verdict as FIA urged to scrap ‘terrible rule’

Mercedes chief Toto Wolff predicts that Lewis Hamilton has a ‘Mercedes’-style challenge attempting to beat Red Bull next season.

Max Verstappen won a record 19 races in 2023 and was victorious by a staggering 17 seconds in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

Red Bull have been able to spend months developing their car for 2024 due to their incredible dominance this year.

“Red Bull started the [current set of] regulations last season with a massive advantage and they have been able to maintain it,” Wolff said.

“We have a lot of respect for their achievement, from the engineering side, and the driver side, and beating them under these regulations [which last until 2026] is against the odds. That is clear.

“But we have seen with McLaren, where an update unlocked a second of time, there is a key to unlocking dramatically more performance.

“We had to be honest that this car was never going to be good enough to fight for a world championship. We took the decision in April to go back to the drawing board and come up with something new next year. But Mount Everest is in front of us.

“We are changing the concept. We are completely moving away from how we lay out the chassis, the weight distribution, the airflow, literally every component has been changed because only by doing that do we have a chance [of beating Red Bull].

“You could get it wrong also. Everything is possible. There is always scepticism. But that is the mentality in the team that pushes us forward, to never give up.”