In their third and final season together as team mates, the battle for supremacy between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell is an intriguing affair.
Russell holds the upper hand in terms of pure results and quite comfortably so by some measures. He’s a solid 10-4 up in the qualifying battle against a driver who has historically excelled at single-lap pace.Hamilton made what appeared to be a less-than-subtle insinuation about his Saturday deficit when he reached 7-1 down in Monaco, saying: “I don’t anticipate being ahead of George in qualifying.” However some within his team observed that the seven-times champion didn’t click as readily with the W15 as Russell did. On that occasion Russell also had the benefit of the team’s latest front wing specification.
Mercedes have continued to bring updates for their car which have mostly proved successful. As their car has improved and Hamilton’s confidence at the wheel has risen, he has started to perform more like his old self.
Hamilton also holds the points lead after 14 rounds, thanks in part to Russell’s two no-scores in the past three races, neither of which he was in a position to avoid. The battle between the two drivers looks well set for the remainder of the season, but instead of scrapping over the middle points positions they are now fighting over victories.
So while Mercedes look set to close on their constructors’ championship rivals over the remaining 10 races, Hamilton appears poised to even things up in the intra-team battle with Russell – much as happened in their first season together. However the final races play out, Russell has given a good account of himself against one of the best in the business.
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Unrepresentative comparisons omitted. Negative value: Hamilton was faster; Positive value: Russell was faster
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Sham (@sham)
3rd August 2024, 8:03
This is one of those rare team mate battles where it’s hard to judge who’s on top. The qualifying results, I’m not putting too much into as it’s very clear that Russell was more happy with the car over the first races – we’ll see over the remaining races.
It’s very close, but Hamilton definitely has the superior race craft when the situation is tough.
Mayrton
3rd August 2024, 9:54
Quali is 4 to 10 for George, finished ahead 4 to 7 for George, laps ahead 271 to 512 for George. Points scored 150 to 116 for George, which derives from 3 DNFs for George vs 1 DNF for Lewis. They both have 1 race win and Lewis technically a second but inherited from George due to DSQ beyond Russells influence. I would say George has the upper hand quite firmly.
SteveP
3rd August 2024, 11:16
The jury is out on the cause of the DQ, but given the team statement that both cars (and drivers) were weighed after Q3 (note not before the race) and were within 500 gm of each other, I have a suspicion George weighed heavy on Saturday, and lighter on Sunday (from, er, natural causes).
If my speculation is right, then George was running light in dry weight terms all the race.
Further, if my speculation is right, then Mercedes need to introduce a driver weighing just before the race to check against the post Q3 weight to ensure that any shortfall is made up in fixed ballast weight.
Mayrton
3rd August 2024, 11:27
Did George have stomach issues the night before the race ;-)?
SteveP
3rd August 2024, 11:59
“Losing” some weight on a daily basis is perfectly natural.
I think you can see how he could have been lighter at the race start than at the end of Q3.
The question is, what procedures should Merc (and probably everyone else) put into place so that there is no repeat?
At present there is no provision for ensuring the driver starts the race at the same weight, or higher than the weight recorded when they finished Q3
35.1c
Each driver must be weighed by the Technical Delegate at the end of the last part of the qualifying session or sprint qualifying session in which they participated.
approx 24hr interval where weight change may occur
35.2 After the sprint session or the race, any classified car may be weighed. If a driver wishes to leave his car before it is weighed, he must ask the Technical Delegate to weigh him in order that this weight may be added to that of the car.
An Sionnach
5th August 2024, 22:38
That’s a lot of speculation.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
3rd August 2024, 15:34
George was handed the win in Belgium by the team that overreacted and put HAM on different tires. If George’s own race engineer knew they could make a 1 stop work, there was no reason to pit HAM. So no, George is okay, but his clumsiness did him in earlier in the year, and the only thing keeping HAM from destroying him is George’s straight line speed, which is more than likely the team’s doing.
Mayrton
4th August 2024, 7:33
Yes, I see now. When Lewis wins, he wins. When Lewis loses its due to others or circumstances. I get it.
MadMax (@madmax)
4th August 2024, 20:53
your dislike of HAM obviously distorts your perception
Broderick Harper (@banbrorace)
5th August 2024, 13:40
@madmax
It’s Maytron. When it comes to Lewis, he has no perceptions. Just 100% dislike.
SteveP
5th August 2024, 19:30
Ah, that’s not fair. I’m convinced it isn’t 100%
Steve (@scbriml)
4th August 2024, 0:45
Russell has one DNF, the same number as Hamilton. The rest is just fluff by you. All that matters at the end of the day is points.
Mayrton
4th August 2024, 7:30
I can understand a bit of fair weather / glory fandom, but George DNFs were AUS, GBR & BEL. Hamilton just AUS and on top of that massively benefitting from the George DNFs at GBR and BEL.
SteveP
4th August 2024, 19:06
I think George could have avoided the DNF in AUS*, GBR was equipment failure.
BEL, is not a DNF, it’s a DQ. The reason is one of those where you have to look at what could have changed in the 24 hours between end of Q3 and end of the race?
The dry weight of the total package was OK at Q3 and couldn’t change in parc ferme.
So, either tyre wear weight loss was much greater than predicted, or George was significantly lighter, for the whole race.
*Go back in time and tell him not to move left, then both George and Lewis can probably finish the race.
O'Ray
5th August 2024, 9:35
3 DNF
George CRASHED in Australia (His fault)
George had a DNF at Silverstone
George was disqualified because Mercedes tried to cheat…
SteveP
5th August 2024, 19:36
DQ != DNF
I’d love to see your justification of the words “Mercedes tried to cheat”.
The car + George were weighed after Q3 and the total was compliant.
The car did not change weight overnight.
No one weighed George before the race.
George and the car were weighed after the race and the total was non-compliant.
AlanD
5th August 2024, 20:23
Steve “No one weighed George before the race.”
How do you know that? The documentation says George was weighed after Q3 by the FIA because that is part of the scrutineering process. That doesn’t mean that was the only time drivers are weighed. What teams do outside scrutineering is not included in the FIA reports.
SteveP
6th August 2024, 17:53
Something of an assumption, based on Shovlin saying George and the car were weighed at the end of Q3 as per regs.
Lots of “what happened, the weight was OK at Q3??” and no mention of “George was weighed before the race.
The car didn’t change weight overnight and people are struggling to explain 1.5 kg loss between end of Q3 and end of race.
mystic one (@mysticus)
6th August 2024, 22:52
steve, the drivers are weighted all, and there is min weight for drivers (inc their gears) and anyone below it will get ballast to offset/balance the difference! george and any other driver knows this, if he lost weight during gp, which every driver does, its his responsibility. this is no excuse. team never said george lost weight or the reason was george. it was tyre wear, floor wear, and some oversight on the fuel as a ballast possibly!
George could have avoided a lot of things, but didnt! Ham literally lost WDC due to equipment failure… twice you could say. china 07, malaysia 16! you cant avoid those unless you can foresee the future.
It is quite obvious team is putting Russell above ham, and artificially making him look better than he is! But like alonso said once, where is palmer? :) Karma takes care of the rest
Applebook
6th August 2024, 2:40
Interesting analysis. One guy has a complete gift victory and disqualified victory in which he cheated (unintentionally) with a lighter car and a much better strategy, which wasn’t at all due to his brilliance but rather out of desperation since he qualified so poorly and had nothing to lose. The other guy was generally fastest in both races that he won. I know that if George hadn’t been unlucky in Spa and Silverstone, he would be ahead in the WCC, but not by much.
Sandwichands
3rd August 2024, 11:34
Nah I just look at the points :)
wooky
3rd August 2024, 18:27
I suggest you multiply george’s points by 2 so then you can say he leads even more.
DonSmee (@david-beau)
3rd August 2024, 8:36
Not bad for a forty year old.
SteveP
3rd August 2024, 8:59
I’d say improved, but not his best.
Wait a little and see what happens.
Broderick Harper (@banbrorace)
3rd August 2024, 21:20
If he has the car, like Fernando – then he’s the best in the field and I include Max.
The problem is having the car.
Sumedh
3rd August 2024, 9:31
Wow the gap between them at Catalunya was just 2 thousandths.
Also, I didn’t realise Catalunya was 10th race this season. Is that the latest it has ever been held?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd August 2024, 10:31
Stats f1 is a great website, I didn’t know how to find the answer to this in a reasonable time (wiki would take ages), it looks like your question is specifically about the barcelona location, but seems the 1991 season is an exception: it was held as the 14th round the 29 September, and it’s actually the inaugural race at barcelona.
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
3rd August 2024, 9:54
It’s so hard to tell. Lewis has held up well against some quality team mates over the years. And George is clearly proving he can get round the track as well as Lewis.
Maybe George just loses his head a little on occassion? Maybe Lewis isn’t performing close to his peak? Given both the stats, and what I have seen on the track I would currently put them pretty even, but Lewis does seem to be on an upward trajectory.
David BR (@david-br)
3rd August 2024, 12:27
Russell is Hamilton’s strongest team mate since Alonso. Fast, consistent, hard racing, totally unfazed about competing against a 7-time champion. Mercedes should be content with him as their lead driver next year. I also think that in a title race, he’d be exceptionally strong-minded and once a WDC, would improve just as Verstappen did. That said, Hamilton is now in the ascendancy but is not yet back to his past levels of consistency and speed, especially over one lap. The question for me is whether this is good as it gets now for LH or whether he can reach his past levels again. We might find out in the second half of the season if Mercedes continue at or near the front. Or it might be a year or two into his time at Ferrari. Or maybe 2021 was the peak. As drivers become dominant (and/or older) they seem to lose their audaciousness. Russell still has that and if, say, he and Lewis are competing at the front in races this season, I suspect it might give him the edge – as he showed tactically in the failed attempt to win at Spa with the one-stop decision, but also in overtaking Hamilton at Canada for 3rd. That showed their different level of sharpness. I’m not yet convinced Hamilton has that back.
SteveP
3rd August 2024, 13:38
As I said earlier, “I’d say improved, but not his best” I see this as stretching the muscles after a long period of inactivity.
Now I want to see Ferrari ‘extract the digit’, to match what McLaren and Merc seem to have done recently, and maybe we can see some proper racing.
2021 was, mostly*, great, right up to the last few illegal minutes.
*Monza was not Max’s ‘finest hour’ in this, or any other, reality.
grat
3rd August 2024, 12:35
George is a little faster over one lap in dry conditions, and a little more aggressive. Lewis is older, a little slower than he was 17 years ago, but has superb racecraft in both the wet and the dry, and can manage his tires like no one else.
Lewis is also the only driver with more than 300 starts to win a race.
Edvaldo
3rd August 2024, 14:11
Hamilton’s season was Vettel 2020 levels of bad until a few rounds ago.
He scored 108 points in the last 5 races, tied with Max as most on the field.
If this upward trend continues for Mercedes i expect him to be their stronger driver for the remaining races.
btyme
3rd August 2024, 19:38
If I’m not mistaken, I think Lewis has scored 92 points in the last 5 races. I don’t want to take anything away from George as he has had 3 non points finishing races. But have to agree with you that if this uptrend continues, Lewis looks to be the stronger of the two for the remainder of the season.
Edvaldo
3rd August 2024, 23:45
You’re correct. It’s 108 on 6 races, tied with Max.
For the last 5 races he actually outscored Max.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
3rd August 2024, 14:21
Is this the worst season ever for Hamilton? But even then he’s on it when it counts: points.
grat
4th August 2024, 10:02
I think 2009 was worse.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
3rd August 2024, 15:31
If Lewis consistently bests Oscar and Leclerc, he might still take 3rd this year. Maybe even second if Mercedes pull a rabbit out of their bottoms.
André
3rd August 2024, 15:49
It’s a combination of factors. There’s age, there’s experience (thus approach), but there’s also the aftermath of the 2021 season which for sure affected his mojo. Then the new cars full of problems until early this season. Then the move to Ferrari. In the first few races, Hamilton looked resigned. Happy to participate but eager to turn the page and start 2025. Now with genuine competitiveness, that seems to have fired him up.
The writers should make an analysis combining all 3 seasons together. What do those stats look like.
By the way, you folks need to follow the Lollipop man on YouTube. His F1 satire is hilarious. You’re welcome.
Ajaxn
4th August 2024, 9:33
I’m sure when Hamilton confirmed his move to Ferrari things shifted at Mercedes, the atmosphere there would have been awkward to say the least. I doubt anything Hamilton did in the lead-up to that confirmation was unknown to the Organisation which is Mercedes.
For better or worse they placed all their eggs in the ‘Russell basket’, meaning they would sink or swim by his stats, and dam those of the old guy.
Its only with the headline generated by the Ferrari move that they realized the value of their key asset. And so we have this last hurra, this last attempt to make good on his potential. A potential that was always there. The bottom line of F1, isn’t just the championship, its the kudos that translate into sales elsewhere. i think Mercedes have belatedly woken to this.
David
3rd August 2024, 21:27
For me, Lewis was doing all the grunt work on trying to find the silver bullet set up that would bring the W15 alive while George was free to do what he liked.
And it was widely reported that in Canada George was slow until he was given Lewis’s trace on how he drove the Montreal track. 6 years driving in Canada and George still know how to get the best from the track.
George is Mr Saturday but for the rest of the year I’m expecting Lewis to come out on top.
Ajaxn
4th August 2024, 9:22
I expect Ferrari will be looking to Hamilton for the same level of assistance. His practice timings will go towards improving the performance of Leclerc. Hamilton’s experience will be that indeterminate x-factor used to get the very best out of the new car.
SteveP
3rd August 2024, 22:53
A small element of reality, if you will please.
If it’s just maths involved rather than actual performance, anyone can win the WDC – there are 284 points up for grabs and the current leader has 277
If you bundle the Saturday points lottery tours (“sprint” pah!) there are effectively 11 weekends worth (approx) so Alonso and downwards would need to win everything and MV score nothing. Realistically, just not happening.
If MV never finishes higher than 5th for the rest of the season, for some reason*, then all the others (Russell and up) can take it.
Realistically, not happening.
*RBR have to remove some special feature because…
PB
4th August 2024, 2:12
Funny how when the car isn’t bouncing like a demented kangaroo and handles ok, suddenly Hamilton can drive it like a champion.
SteveP
4th August 2024, 9:00
Q. Wasn’t there a race relatively recently where Max was complaining about the car behaving like a bleeping kangaroo?
Just shows how most of the cars are close to the edge I suppose.
Ajaxn
4th August 2024, 9:15
Lets not burry our heads in the sand on this one.
Last year we had that 1 + 1 contract for Hamilton meaning he knew the writing was on the wall. Mercedes were understandably looking to boost the standings and ego of their soon-to-be leader.
Whilst Hamilton openly got on with Russell, internally the dynamics had shifted from complete support of Hamilton to this acceptance of Russell as the new Brit on the block. We can only surmise how that affected the stats. [Let’s not forget Russell’s redflaging Brazil 2022 to secure that pole, or the sterling efforts of Hamilton to keep a charging Verstappen at bay. ]
Cue this year, where Hamilton had to openly hint at poor tire preparations before things started to improve for him. The timing for those page-one ‘tire-gate’ headlines could not have been better, on the lead to Silverstone. That storm forced Mercedes to look at itself, and in that way make it clear to its workforce that there were to be no more shenanigans.
The rest we know. The stats before and since speak volumes. As ever, there is no place in the official record of events for the unconfirmed. But we know.
In this last race where events backfired on Russell, we are left to accept the decisions taken were all done on the fly with no prior thought. There is no room to intelligently speculate with an alternative reading of events. We should just accept there was no Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, etc, going into that race.
I make this point to say stats alone won’t tell the whole story, we’d be fools to think they do. #mindgames.
SteveP
4th August 2024, 10:26
I recall the interview comments, but don’t really subscribe to the conspiracy stuff.
I’m sure there are much less obvious ways to slow down a driver without using such an obvious one like tyre temperature.
CP
4th August 2024, 19:44
Love to know the record since the leaked email about the team favouring George or sabotaging Lewis…..surely just a coincidence.
Anyone watching the race live can see its Lewis all day over the quite average George.
In a poor season for Lewis, poor team support etc he is still ahead in points and giving us magic like Silverstone.
George inherited a win and was given a dodgy second until he was rightly disqualified.