After he crosses the finish line in Barcelona at the final round of the 2024 MotoGP season on 17 November, Takaaki Nakagami will start a new chapter in his life as a Honda test rider.

It’s a role that will take him back to his home country of Japan, a seismic shift for him after spending the best part of 10 years living in Europe.

Out of those 10, seven were spent racing in MotoGP with the LCR Honda team. He will leave the premier class with the sting of not having finished on the podium, despite coming close on a few occasions during his breakthrough 2020 campaign.

Nakagami had previously scored 14 podiums in six seasons in Moto2, including two wins, which earned him a move up to the premier class with Honda’s satellite squad, LCR. Nakagami was inducted into the Idemitsu side of the operation in 2018 to meet the Asian quota set by the lubricants company.

In 2025, it will be Thai racer Somkiat Chantra who will take over the place currently occupied by Nakagami, who took the decision to step down from MotoGP a few months ago. However, he maintains his relationship with Honda, which will keep him a test rider based in Japan.

Takaaki Nakagami, Team LCR Honda

Photo by: Asif Zubairi

This move is part of the shake-up that Honda instigated by Honda to accelerate the optimisation of its RC213V, a bike whose performance has been in a free fall for some time. The arrival of Romano Albesiano as the new technical director, plus three-time grand prix winner Aleix Espargaro into the testing division in Europe, is all part of the same overhaul. Nakagami will add another gear in the development of the parts that are tested in Japan, a task that was until now in the hands of Tetsuta Nagashima.

In next week’s finale, Nakagami will say goodbye to what can be considered more of his home track than Motegi. The Japanese rider, after all, has been living in Sant Cugat del Valles on the outskirts of Barcelona for almost a decade.

After the final stop on the calendar, and official test the following Tuesday, in which his job will be to tutor Chantra, he will pack his bags and return to his home in Chiba, a city located 40 kilometres to the east of Tokyo. There, his life will suddenly go down two gears, at least as far as travel is concerned, although he still does not know what his day-to-day routine would look like.

“We have not yet spoken with Honda. We will do so at the beginning of December, when I will go to the HRC headquarters. There they will explain to me the plan they have planned for me, for the next six months,” Nakagami told Motorsport.com / Autosport.

“I don’t know yet how many days of testing I will do, or where, or how many wild cards they want me to do.

“Honda wants to accelerate the development of the bike in Japan. There is Nagashima, but he is not fast enough to evaluate the parts beyond their functionality. The idea is to shorten the time in the evaluation of the novelties, and I am faster than him. My times will not be five seconds off the grand prix riders.”

After 17 full seasons in the world championship, including the lower classes, Nakagami is aware that the demands of being a rider will not be the same from next year.

Takaaki Nakagami, LCR Honda

Photo by: Asif Zubairi

That doesn’t mean that he can abandon his preparation, although his new routine will have nothing to do with the one he had until now in Barcelona, where he trained six days a week and combined sessions in the gym with flat track training.

“My rhythm and lifestyle will change completely. For the last 10 years, I have been living in Spain, and now I will move back to Japan,” he said.

“The first thing I will have to do is adapt to the new context, to the new weather, and then see what is the best way to keep fit and familiar with speed.

“The good thing is that Honda is always there, so I will be able to use the bikes they let me use, or use their circuits.”

Quite apart from the unfavourable competitive situation of March Grand Prix in 1982, the year’s dizzying politics and the deaths of two fellow Formula 1 drivers made it a tough baptism for Raul Boesel. Driving the DFV-powered 821 chassis that used three different tyre suppliers during the season, the Brazilian never figured in the points. Starting 17th in Rio and finishing eighth at Zolder were the limited high points.

For Boesel, who clipped the stalled Ferrari of Didier Pironi at Montreal moments before Osella driver Riccardo Paletti fatally rammed it, there is no doubt that what was already “a difficult time” in his rookie season would have been more so without the laid-back Jochen Mass alongside him in the camp.

With any other experienced driver, Boesel anticipates that there would have been “a fight inside the team just to get the better parts” that would have made things “much harder”. But for Mass, a driver who had continued to compete in long-distance touring car and sportscar events alongside F1, the notion of a team-mate automatically being enemy number one never applied.

Boesel observes that the German “was very honest with exchanging information on the cars”, which made a huge impression. “I never forget that,” adds the driver who latterly became a stalwart of Indycar racing and finished runner-up five times in Dick Simon Racing Lolas between 1992-94.

A British Formula 3 graduate in 1982, Boesel admits to feeling star-struck when he arrived in a paddock that contained big beasts Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and Gilles Villeneuve. This is perhaps unsurprising given the speed of his ascent; he had been racing Formula Fords just two years beforehand, finishing runner-up in both the 1980 RAC and Townsend Thoresen championships, before placing third in British F3 aboard his Murray Taylor Ralt in 1981.

“When I arrived [in F1], I was very shy,” admits Boesel, who went on to win the World Sportscar Championship with Jaguar in 1987. “And Jochen, he opened his arms and was very good at teaching me a lot of things. He was very experienced, was very welcoming on his side on the team.”

Rookie Boesel had a baptism of fire in 1982, but welcome the generosity of team-mate Mass

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Mass was in a very different position in his career to Boesel; he had made his debut with Surtees back in 1973, and had won the red-flagged 1975 Spanish Grand Prix at Montjuic Park during a three-season stretch with McLaren. Returning to F1 after a year out in 1982, he had little to prove and was happy to assist his young team-mate, offering a preview of the mentor role he would later take on with the Mercedes junior team towards the end of the decade in Group C.

Mass was even supportive on occasions the youngster outqualified him during their 10 Grands Prix together (which would have been 11 had the RAM-run Marches and its fellow FOCA-aligned teams not boycotted the San Marino Grand Prix at the peak of the FISA-FOCA war, following the disqualification of Piquet and Keke Rosberg from the Brazilian GP).

Boesel was quicker in three of the first four races on Pirellis, before a switch to Avon for Monaco swung the needle in the direction of Mass. It was a misstep, as the British manufacturer had announced its intention to withdraw from F1; team boss John Macdonald bought up Avon’s stock, but development was non-existent.

“We had very difficult times at March but a few races that I qualified ahead of him, [Mass] was kind of happy. He would say ‘congratulations on how you did’, he was friendly all the time”
Raul Boesel

Ultimately the qualifying head-to-head stood at 5-5 following the French GP at Paul Ricard, where a scary crash with Mauro Baldi’s Arrows at Signes Curve prompted Mass – still shaken from his involvement in Villeneuve’s fatal accident at Zolder – to call time on F1 and focus exclusively on sportscars. The late Rupert Keegan replaced him for the remainder of a trying campaign which included two races on Michelins.

The 821 was the year’s 15th fastest car by a metric of supertimes, as March fell in behind Toleman, ATS, Osella, Arrows and Ensign. Only Theodore, with its revolving cast of drivers including Derek Daly, Jan Lammers, Geoff Lees and Tommy Byrne, and Fittipaldi (a one-car team for Chico Serra, who came to blows with Boesel in the Montreal pitlane) were slower than the second iteration of Macdonald’s collaboration with March Engineering – which by 1982 was effectively in name only.

Chief engineer Adrian Reynard had made the car stiffer and lighter than its predecessor, the first March-designed F1 car since 1977 which had been derided by Macdonald in public, but even an injection of funds from Rothmans couldn’t transform the normally-aspirated car’s competitive prospects as turbo power became increasingly potent. The cigarette manufacturer eventually terminated its support before the benefits could truly take effect.

“We had very difficult times at March but a few races that I qualified ahead of him, [Mass] was kind of happy in a way,” remembers Boesel. “He would say ‘congratulations on how you did’, and he was very friendly all the time. He spent many years in Formula 1 and everybody respected him, so it wasn’t much difference for him to be outqualified in a few races.”

Mass (left, with Adrian Reynard) bowed out of F1 mid-season during the tumultuous 1982

Photo by: David Phipps

Advertisement

That Mass was content to be his own man and collaborate with his team-mates, a trait that made him such an effective foil to Jacky Ickx in the works Rothmans Porsche Group C team, was evidenced by him not joining the drivers’ strike at Johannesburg’s Sunnyside Park Hotel on the eve of the South African Grand Prix. That he had been staying with friends and was unaware of the details was immaterial.

For Boesel, preparing for his first Grand Prix, the controversy over changes to the superlicence that would prevent drivers from changing teams was an unwelcome distraction.

“Jochen was the only one that didn’t go to the hotel,” points out Boesel, who naturally felt strong peer pressure to join his contemporaries. “I remember John Macdonald was hitting on the bus windscreen on the side where I was sitting and screaming ‘if you don’t come out of this bus, your career is finished’. On the other side of the bus, Gilles Villeneuve was saying, ‘Look, you guys have all the support from us, the more experienced drivers, we will not let this happen’.”

Mass set a standard that Boesel would not experience again during his all-too-brief F1 career, which concluded after just 23 starts following a 1983 season in which neither he nor Ligier team-mate Jean-Pierre Jarier could score in the normally-aspirated JS21. “When I went to Ligier it was very different,” he adds.

After switching to Indycar with Dick Simon for 1985-86, Boesel’s career peaked in 1987 when Mass was in the final year of his Porsche affiliation before the move to Group C rival Mercedes that finally netted him a Le Mans victory in 1989.

Five wins in TWR-run XJR-8s shared with co-drivers including Eddie Cheever, John Nielsen, Martin Brundle and Johnny Dumfries earned Boesel the title, and he was regularly brought back into the fold over the next several years in parallel with Indycar commitments, adding the Daytona 24 Hours in 1988 with Brundle and Nielsen. He also contested the full IMSA schedule in 1991 along with Davy Jones in TWR’s two-car attack.

But the 66-year-old, who saw out his career in the all-oval Indy Racing League following stints racing alongside the likes of Scott Brayton (1992-93), Bobby Rahal (1995) and Scott Pruett (1997) on the other side of ‘the split’, cannot look beyond Mass for his favourite team-mate because of the lasting impression he made in a chaotic season like no other.

“Arriving in F1 with a lot of anxiety, it was a bit easier to have somebody else like that to give you support,” concludes Boesel, who today indulges his passion for electronic music as a DJ.

Boesel later encountered his 1982 team-mate when they raced in Group C

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Jaguar’s Mitch Evans finished the final day of pre-season testing at Jarama quickest ahead of Kiro’s Dan Ticktum and reigning Formula E champion Pascal Wehrlein.

Evans topped the final session on Friday morning with a 1m27.461s, the fastest lap recorded by the all-electric championship over the three days of testing, which left him 0.141s clear of Ticktum.

The result is the first time this week that reigning teams’ champions Jaguar has occupied top spot, with Porsche-powered cars finishing fastest in two out of the six sessions that have been held.

David Beckmann posted the fastest lap on Thursday morning for Kiro, the team having been rebranded from ERT last year as well as switching to using a Porsche powertrain as opposed to its own bespoke unit for the upcoming season.

Despite impressive times, neither Ticktum nor Beckmann have been signed by the team yet, but a decision on the driver line-up is expected in the week leading up to the season-opener in Sao Paulo on 7 December.

Antonio Felix da Costa posted the fastest time on the opening day for the factory Porsche team, while Wehrlein also led home his team-mate during the 24-lap simulation race.

Dan Ticktum, Kiro Race Co

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Formula E rookie Zane Maloney, who was unable to compete in Thursday’s simulation race due to a technical fault which left his Lola/Yamaha-powered Abt stranded on the grid, headed Friday’s times during the early running before slipping to eighth.

Full-time rookie Taylor Barnard finished Friday’s session in fourth for McLaren, just 0.319s behind Evans’s best, ahead of Beckmann, Nissan’s Oliver Rowland and Maserati MSG’s Stoffel Vandoorne.

The second Maserati MSG of Jake Hughes had finished fastest on Wednesday morning, with Maximilian Guenther (DS Penske) and Nyck de Vries (Mahindra) also ending quickest throughout the week.

Any further improvement in the final five minutes on Friday was denied after Guenther found the gravel at Turn 3, bringing out the only red flag of the session.

An all-female test is due to take place on Friday afternoon with all teams required to run at least one driver and a total of 18 set to compete in the three-hour session.

This includes three-time W Series champion Jamie Chadwick, who once again tests with Jaguar having done so in 2020, as well as current F1 Academy points leader Abbi Pulling.

The 21-year-old Briton is on the cusp of the title in the all-female series with this year’s champion set to be given a fully funded drive in the UK’s GB3 Championship with Rodin for the 2025 season.

Formula E Jarama pre-season testing – Friday morning results

When Fortec Motorsport bowed out of International Formula 3000 at the end of 2000, it did so with a single podium courtesy of Jamie Davies finishing second in Monaco. Another provisionally taken by Andreas Scheld at the Nurburgring was chalked off for the most minor of technical infractions, a stray piece of tape on the front wing endplate following a change of nose robbing the German of a true shock result in mixed conditions.

But it is conceivable that the team’s tally might well have been far higher had a promising test with a future world champion resulted in a race deal. The small matter of a route to Formula 1 unexpectedly opening up for Jenson Button ultimately took care of that.

Button’s meteoric rise from British Formula 3 to F1 with Williams for 2000, after beating Bruno Junqueira in the race to replace Alex Zanardi, is well-known. But less remembered is his appearance at a three-day end-of-year F3000 test at Jerez 25 years ago, as he evaluated the next stage of a career that would a matter of days later take in a maiden F1 test as his prize for winning the previous year’s McLaren Autosport BRDC Award.

Button made his F3000 bow with Super Nova before moving on to Fortec, a team new to the category for 1999 that had peaked with two fifth places for ex-F1 racer Norberto Fontana. After setting the sixth-fastest time, he made an impression on team boss Richard Dutton.

“If you’d asked me a week ago whether he was ready for F3000, I’d have said not,” he told Autosport at the time. “After what I’ve seen, however, I’d say he’s ready now.”

It turned out that Button was ready for far more than F3000 – a point that was quickly apparent to Fortec team manager and Button’s engineer at the test, David Hayle.

“He was definitely one of those drivers that was mature beyond his years in terms of ability,” recalls Hayle. “Nothing fazed him. You couldn’t put him off his stride, he was permanently in the zone when he was in the car. It was a really, eye-opening experience to get somebody so young, so mature and so good all together.”

Button impressed Fortec with his maturity when he stepped up from F3 in November 1999

Photo by: Russell Batchelor / Motorsport Images

Advertisement

Button had graduated from Formula Ford to the F3 ranks for 1999 with the Renault-powered Promatecme team, ending up best of the rest behind title protagonists Marc Hynes (Manor Motorsport) and Luciano Burti (Paul Stewart Racing). His performances had attracted attention from the Prost F1 team, who would give him a trial at Barcelona in December and ignite speculation that he could race for its F3000 arm – a race winner with Stephane Sarrazin in 1999 – if he didn’t return to F3 with Promatecme.

Fortec had run Kristian Kolby and Matt Davies to fourth and fifth in the 1999 British F3 standings, and so got a close look at the upstart Button. Hayle says the “massive PR campaign” behind Button had intensified its desire to beat him and admits to becoming saturated by the hype, but it bred in him a curiosity that this might just be a very special driver who Fortec couldn’t afford not to try out at the next level.

Hayle recalls making a pitch to a reluctant Dutton before proceeding anyway to organise a meeting at Towcester’s Little Chef with Button’s manager David Robertson. “We agreed a very favourable deal for him to do it,” he says, clarifying that this was initially only for one day of the test due to the proximity of Button’s run in the 1998 world championship-winning McLaren MP4-14.

“We got in the car and I was like, ‘this is amazing’. The position was great, low, it was like ‘what’s going on?’”
Jenson Button

Speaking to Autosport in 2020, Button revealed he didn’t get on well with Super Nova’s Lola B99/50. “I hated the test, was really slow on the first day,” he said.

But when he headed to Fortec, it was a revelation for both parties. Button recalled: “The next day and we got in the car and I was like, ‘this is amazing’. The position was great, low, it was like ‘what’s going on?’”

Hayle was assigned to be his engineer and, as he got to know the driver that would become a 15-time Grand Prix winner, discovered that he was “really pleasantly surprised by what I saw as the real Jenson Button, as opposed to the Jenson Button that we’d been competing against all season”.

“Underneath there was a really just genuine, easy-going boy that was bloody good in a race car,” he says. “We did the test and it was one of the easiest days at a race track that I’ve that I’ve had. He was great; he was calm, bought into everything that you asked him to do.”

First day in Lola B99/50 was a struggle with Super Nova before productive test with Fortec

Photo by: Russell Batchelor / Motorsport Images

Advertisement

Conversation soon turned to the prospect of continuing for the final morning of the test on 10 November. “We hastily moved stuff around and got him in,” says Hayle, before the team and Button’s entourage – which included his late father, John – went to dinner at a pizza joint near the track.

“I sat next to Jenson and said, ‘I owe you an apology’,” relates Hayle. “‘All year long, I’ve really been giving you a hard time. Not just me; everyone’s giving you a hard time because of the whole PR thing that’s behind you and I joined the bandwagon. I thought you were made up and it wasn’t real, but I got it wrong; you’re bloody good in a car, I’m really enjoying the test. I’m sorry’. And he said, ‘Oh, yeah, but I’m used to it, I got it from everyone’.”

To Hayle, Button’s performances on the second day were telling of his approach. In Jerez, he explains, typically teams would use one set of tyres in the morning then save a set for the afternoon. Since Button was only staying for the morning, Hayle devised a plan to use both sets. He says minimal changes were made after the first run, which was benchmarked against Mario Haberfeld in the sister Fortec car.

“It was nothing significant, it was more a case of ‘just show me where I need to improve,’” explains Hayle. Once that was taken on board, Button went out again, taking the rest of the pitlane by surprise.

Hayle recalls “the whole paddock scrambling to get drivers and people back on the cars, putting on another set of tyres” to follow suit, bucking convention. “He ended up P6 out of 44 cars, or something like that,” adds Hayle. “It was just incredible.”

How representative testing times are can be up for debate. After all, the test was topped by Haberfeld, who went on to sign for Fortec but didn’t score a point in a season blighted by a huge qualifying accident in Barcelona. Davies was brought in for two races while the Brazilian recovered, his Monaco showing putting to rest memories of a trying 1999 with Edenbridge as he focused subsequently on sportscars.

But other rookies in 2000 provide a hint of what Button might have achieved in the category. Sportscar convert Mark Webber (European Arrows) was a winner at the second time of asking at a wet Silverstone, after a robust move on fellow newcomer Darren Manning (Arden). Fernando Alonso was unable to take the start at Silverstone due to a technical irregularity with his Astromega car’s engine studs, but tracked winner Junqueira all the way to the flag in Hungary before putting together a dominant performance in Spa on his way to F1 with Minardi.

Fortec’s only podium of 2000 came with stand-in driver Davies in Monaco

Photo by: Lorenzo Bellanca / Motorsport Images

Advertisement

And while Button himself admitted that the Apomatox/Prost Junior team would have been the more likely option for 2000, if Williams had chosen Junqueira instead, he believes he could have mastered the Lola B99/50.

“You get used to something over time,” he said. “Super GT when I jumped in it, didn’t enjoy it at all and I was nowhere. After a few days testing, we were on the pace and we won the championship that year [in 2018], so it just takes time. We learn to adapt, some cars take longer than others.”

But when the Williams opportunity came, F3000 would naturally fall by the wayside and his affiliation with Fortec proved fleeting. Yet Hayle has no doubt that “skipping F3000 was absolutely the right thing to do for him”, as Button put together a decent first season in F1, reaching the points in the second race and on five further occasions to peak with fourth at Hockenheim.

“If you get the chance to go to F1, without doing [F3000], why wouldn’t you?” he says.

Button joined Williams for 2000 and the rest was history

Photo by: Motorsport Images

The FIA has increased the allocation of superlicence points awarded for Super Formula for 2025, bringing it roughly in line with Formula E and the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class.

Up until now, the champion of the Japanese single-seater series has received 25 points, putting it in line with the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine, with 20 and 15 points going to the second- and third-placed drivers respectively.

However, according to the latest version of the FIA’s International Sporting Code, Super Formula’s allocation has been boosted for 2025, with the winner now receiving 30 points, the second-placed driver 25 and the third-placed driver 20.

That matches both Formula E and FIA Formula 3, with only Formula 2 and IndyCar awarding more, while bringing it roughly in sync with the WEC’s top division, which awards 30 points to the champions and 24 for second.

The full allocation for the top 10 finishers in the championship is now 30-25-20-15-12-9-7-5-3-2, which exactly mirrors the scale for FIA F3.

In a statement supplied to Motorsport.com, a spokesperson for the FIA cited the “evolution” of Super Formula in recent seasons as an explanation for the change.

“The allocation of FIA superlicence points is regularly reviewed as the single-seater pyramid changes and develops over time,” read the statement.

“During the most recent meeting of the Superlicence Working Group, an update to the points allocated to Japanese Super Formula was approved for implementation from 2025.

Liam Lawson, TEAM MUGEN

Photo by: Masahide Kamio

“This update reflects the evolution of the series as one of the fastest single-seater competitions outside of the FIA Formula One World Championship, with the Working Group noting that there have been several recent examples of drivers competing in Super Formula moving to Formula 1 and other FIA World Championship categories.”

The reference to drivers going on to race in F1 is likely a nod to current RB driver Liam Lawson, who finished runner-up in Super Formula last year behind Ritomo Miyata.

Ryo Hirakawa and Sacha Fenestraz are two other recent examples of Super Formula alumni who have gone on to race in FIA world championship categories, WEC and Formula E respectively.

Another factor that may have influenced the decision to increase the number of superlicence points is the number of races, which will increase to 12 from the current level of nine as all bar two of the seven rounds become double-headers.

Series organiser JRP has outlined plans to increase this number further in future years, with a medium-target of 20 races held over 10 race weekends.

Current Super Formula points leader Sho Tsuboi has already reached the 40-point threshold required for a superlicence on the back of his title success in Super GT in 2021 and 2023.

Should he win the title this weekend at Suzuka, he will remain at 40 points as the 20 points earned for his 2021 GT500 title are due to expire after this season.

Sho Tsuboi, VANTELIN TEAM TOM’S

Photo by: Masahide Kamio

Of the other title contenders, second-placed Tadasuke Makino currently sits on 27 points, but is set to lose 10 of those points after this year, meaning he would only become eligible for a superlicence if he became champion this weekend.

However, under the 2025 system, the extra five points would be enough to tip him over the 40-point threshold even if he finished second.

Tomoki Nojiri and Ayumu Iwasa have both reached the 40-point mark; Nojiri from his past success in Super Formula, becoming champion in 2021 and ‘22, and Iwasa from his Formula 2 performances in 2022-23.

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes would like nothing more than to end their 12 years together on a high.
However, based on recent form, there is a very real risk that their time may finish not with a bang, but with a whimper.

If things continue like they did in Brazil last weekend, where Hamilton qualified 14th and finished 10th while team-mate George Russell started on the front row and fought for the win, then there will not be much to smile about when the curtain comes down in Abu Dhabi.

Hamilton’s own verdict after the Brazilian Grand Prix was pretty damning, as he labelled the race as “crap” on Sunday night.

He added: “Yesterday [Saturday] was terrible. Today [Sunday] was terrible. Yesterday was bad. Qualifying was bad. Sprint race was bad. The car’s just been bad all weekend.”

He further fuelled intrigue about the scale of the struggles enveloping him as he delivered a cryptic message over the radio straight after the chequered flag.

“That was a disaster of a weekend, guys,” he said on the cooldown lap. “That’s the worst the car has ever been. But thank you for contributing to try, and great job to all the guys at the pitstop.

“If this is the last time I get to perform it was a shame it wasn’t great – but grateful for you.”

Some interpreted those comments as a revelation that Brazil was going to be Hamilton’s last race, although that is certainly wide of the mark.

And, although it is not clear exactly what he was referring to, his remark about the pit crew on a day when they were not actually called into action, was more likely a reference to the fact that some personnel were having their last race appearance of 2024 in Brazil due to the shuffling around of staff to cope with the intense schedule for triple headers.

The root of the problem

While the current performances on the track are not great, what is perhaps the biggest issue right now is that neither Mercedes nor Hamilton had an immediate answer after Brazil for what had gone wrong, despite there being some clear symptoms.

What is at play is a repeat of what he has been battling since the summer break, when his form took a big dip from that spell in July when he took two wins from three races.

Primarily, the problem appears to be about Hamilton having a lack of confidence in the car, especially its rear end.

As the above graph comparing the telemetry traces of Hamilton (blue) and Russell (red) in Q1 on Sunday morning shows clearly, there is a remarkable difference in the way the drivers were feeding in the throttle – mainly in the lower speed corners.

As the bottom trace shows, Russell could increase the accelerator consistently, whereas Hamilton’s lack of confidence is crystal clear. The loose rear end means he is constantly having to back off and that leaves him bleeding speed and lap time.

The current generation of ground effect machinery are pretty brutal machines – running super stiff and super close to the ground – and they are not very forgiving when driving on the edge.

Some drivers are better suited to overcome an unpredictable balance, but Hamilton is finding himself put a bit more on the back foot by it.

And typically, when a driver loses faith in the rear end, it slides more – and that then compounds tyre temperature issues.

So what starts out as a small issue can quickly manifest itself into something bigger and can make two nearly identical cars vastly different in how they develop over a race stint.

As Mercedes head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin explained this week: “It is fair to say Lewis was struggling predominantly with a lack of rear grip.

“If we look at how he had set up his car, it is not obvious where that was coming from.

“But in the sprint race, as soon as you have got less grip and you are getting the snaps of oversteer on exit, you generate more temperature. That in itself will prolong the problem.

“As with any race, we spend a lot of time digging into the data, trying to understand it, and Lewis’ engineering crew will be working with him on this issue, trying to make sure we get to the bottom of it before Vegas.”

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Hamilton’s struggles in finding a set-up he feels comfortable with have also not been helped much by Mercedes’ latest upgrade that arrived at the United States Grand Prix.

While it appears to have ticked all the boxes when it comes to deliver extra performance on track, there are some questions about it also adding some behavioural instability as well – as was witnessed by Hamilton’s race exit in Austin a day after George Russell’s qualifying crash.

And a particular weakness the car has, in dealing with successive low-speed corners, is something that has not been improved with the latest changes.

Shovlin added: “We have not had such good performance in the dry, but the issues that we are struggling with with this update are the same as the ones we were struggling with before.

“Where we tend to be weak, it is in the slow speed corners, particularly the ones where you have got one corner following into another. There is a lot of turning of the car, and that is a weakness that we need to work on.”

With sector two of Interlagos being pretty much all about interconnected slow corners, it was obvious that the Brazil event was going to potentially be more difficult than normal for the team.

Working on a solution

The only positive for Hamilton right now is that at least Russell’s performances show what is possible with the car.

And some forthcoming high-speed venues, especially Qatar, could help better expose the strengths of the W15 package rather than its weaknesses.

Hamilton has admitted that things are not easy right now, but there was no other option than to dig deeper with his team to try to find a way out of it before Abu Dhabi.

“Obviously, it’s devastating to have these bad races in the second half of the season,” he said. “But all I can say is, we’re trying. 

“But it’s definitely not acceptable. It’s definitely not good enough. And we have to take accountability. I have to take accountability. But I am driving.; I am doing the best with what I’ve got. 

“The car has been the worst this weekend, and I don’t know what it is. We’re going to have to find out what it is.”

That work began for Hamilton this week with some intense work at the factory to sit down with the engineers, and spend time in the simulator yesterday, to try to get some answers as to what is happening.

Las Vegas will tell us just how much those efforts have paid off.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images