In a devastating F1 blow, Lewis Hamilton informed Mercedes that they couldn’t meet his most recent request.

Speaking following his dismal fifth-place finish in the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, Hamilton urged his Mercedes team to significantly improve its performance this winter to rival Red Bull.

The development of a Mercedes Formula 1 car in 2024, as ambitiously hoped for by Lewis Hamilton, is an impossibility.

According to Gary Anderson, a former executive in charge of car development for the Jordan and Jaguar F1 teams, this is the case. It followed remarks made by Hamilton following the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday.

Seven-time world champion George Russell came in fifth place, two spots behind him, in that race.
Max Verstappen, who won his 13th race out of 16 this season, was almost a minute behind both of them.

After the race, Hamilton said: “I have no idea where the car is going to be next year but we are a long, long way away.
The next six months must be the best six months of growth we’ve ever experienced in order to close that gap and really start pounding on the door.
“.

In Anderson’s opinion, Mercedes is unlikely to experience that outcome.
He expressed his skepticism regarding the Silver Arrows’ potential for rapid advancement in a piece for The Telegraph and felt they were still not fully aware of the flaws in their vehicle.

“You would expect a team of Mercedes’ stature, experience, and budget to improve their car during the season, but they have not,” the author wrote. It is highly improbable that the team will experience miraculous growth over the winter.

“Based on the current rate of development among the top five teams, I would predict that Mercedes will be, at most, the fourth-fastest team at the start of the following season. You need to demonstrate to yourself that you are aware of your issues, and after 20 months and 38 races since the ground effect rules went into effect, I have not yet seen this.
A team can’t just bank on the winter to deliver success.

Since last year’s beginning, not much has changed.
It seems like they have no idea what to expect going into a race meeting.
The direction the team is going in for next year, whatever it may be, is not one in which I would feel confident if I were on the team.
“.

Red Bull has already won the championship with six race weekends remaining, so Mercedes hopes to at least finish second in the constructors’ standings at the end of the season.
However, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has already acknowledged that his team does not currently possess the second-fastest car on the grid.

“McLaren was a quicker car,” he claimed following the race in Suzuka.
You can’t really communicate with your opponents when there is a buffer car between you and them.
I believe that McLaren is quick because the update they made in Singapore didn’t appear to be very significant there.
All those are slow-moving corners.
It’s all very fast paced here.
And, you know, we saw them become very skilled at that when they conducted the previous update in Austria.
Therefore, they simply have a better car at the moment.
“.