George Russell beat Lewis Hamilton to score the first Grand Prix podium of 2024 for Mercedes in Canada last weekend. Russell finished third in Montreal after starting the race on pole.
Mercedes shocked their rivals by making a huge leap in performance at the ninth round of the season. With new front wings on both cars, they looked to be the fastest car in dry conditions.
The Silver Arrows have spent much of this year in a somewhat isolated position. They haven’t been quick enough to compete with Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren at the front, but they’re also comfortably ahead of the midfield pack.
However, Russell was able to bag just the second pole position of his F1 career in Canada, setting the exact same lap time as Max Verstappen but doing so first. Hamilton, meanwhile, had to settle for seventh after failing to improve on his second run.
A downpour on Sunday may have hurt Mercedes’ chances in that it produced a chaotic race. Russell made a series of costly mistakes over the 71 laps and surrendered the chance for victory.
Hamilton was able to climb to fourth place even after what he called one of the worst performances of his career. He briefly ran in third in the closing stages before Russell re-passed him to end Mercedes’ wait for a podium.
Mercedes apologise for overlooking Lewis Hamilton Sprint podium after Canadian Grand Prix
Writing on their official X account on Monday, Mercedes celebrated the fact that they were ‘heading home with their first trophy of the year’. In response, many Hamilton fans pointed out that this wasn’t strictly true.
Hamilton had already finished second in the Sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix back in April. While this won’t go down in the records as a podium finish, the 39-year-old did collect a plaque in parc ferme.
In a subsequent post on Tuesday, the Brackley outfit acknowledged their error. They insisted that all of their silverware ‘matters’, whether they achieve it on a Saturday or a Sunday.
“This is our second trophy of the year, not our first as we mistakenly said,” the post read. “All Sprint and Grand Prix trophies matter to us. Thank you for holding us to account on this mistake.”
Hamilton is now more than a third of the way through his final season with Mercedes as he prepares to join Ferrari in 2025. Across an 11-year stint with the German manufacturer, he’s won six world championships – more than any driver has ever achieved with a single team.
Hamilton tells Mercedes there’s something they ‘really have to look at’
Hamilton has been struggling relative to teammate Russell this season. After his Montreal pole, the latter now leads the qualifying head-to-head 8-1, an eye-catching scoreline.
He’s also 7-2 up in the races, which is partly why he’s sitting 14 points ahead in the championship. Mercedes have spent much of the year scrapping in the lower half of the top 10, but if the W15 improves and Russell continues to have the advantage, then that gap could grow significantly.
Hamilton was initially at a loss to explain why he’d struggled so much when he had a shot at pole position in qualifying last weekend. But he then discovered that he was leaving the pits with unexpectedly cold tyres, an issue he’s told Mercedes to investigate.
Three-time world champion and fellow Briton Jackie Stewart has warned him that his move to Ferrari will be a ‘big undertaking’. He fears that the sport’s ‘really hungry’ crop of young drivers will be ‘after him’ because of his reputation as an all-time great.
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