Hamilton expecting thrilling close finish to 2024
Lewis Hamilton says that the top four teams in F1 are now so closely matched that almost anything could happen in the second half of the 2024 world championship season.
When the season kicked off in March it seemed a foregone conclusion that Red Bull would dominate the competition for a second consecutive year, with Max Verstappen duly taking back-to-back victories in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
And then the season went off-script, with Carlos Sainz returning from an appendectomy to unexpectedly win in Australia, before Verstappen looked to be back in charge in Japan and China.
But as the season has progressed, McLaren has MCL38 eclipsed the RB20 as the fastest car on track with wins for both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Charles Leclerc achieved a life-long dream with a historic home win in Monaco.
Meanwhile Mercedes have finally rediscovered their form with two wins for Hamilton and another for George Russell. It means there have been seven different winners from four different teams so far compared to 2023's Red Bull blow-out.
The spills and thrills and shocks didn't even let up heading into the summer shutdown which will allow drivers and teams to catch a much-needed breath, with Hamilton expecting new heights of competition still to come.
“It’s really fantastic for the sport to be having such close teams and drivers," Hamilton said after inheriting victory at Spa from Russell following the latter's disqualification for an underweight car.
"The pedigree of drivers at the top today are really elite and amazing," Hamilton added, with Verstappen still holding a 78 point lead over Norris but Leclerc, Piastri, Sainz and Hamilton himself all in hot pursuit.
Things could have been even tighter had Mercedes made a stronger and more consistent start. "We didn’t expect to be competing with the McLarens or the Red Bulls at this point in the season, you know, with how we started off.
"For us to now have closed up and be, it’s going to be one hell of a second half of the season for sure,” Hamilton predicted.
While Red Bull's strong start has given them a strong early points advantage and may be enough to ward off threats over the back half of the calendar, Christian Horner is clearly worried about how close things are getting now.
“If you reflect on the first part of the year now, we’re over half distance. We’ve won seven grands prix. We’ve won two or three Sprint races. We’re leading both championships," Horner said this week.
"But over recent weeks, that [lead in the] constructors has diminished somewhat, and that’s where our focus is," he said, adding: "We know where we need to focus and improve, and that’s what everybody’s doing.
“With four teams all fighting I think it’s great for the sport", he commented. "It was almost inevitable when you get consistency of regulations, you always get convergence.
"Convergence has always brought the teams together," he continued. “If you look through the history of F1, I remember when I first came into F1, Ron Dennis banging that drum back in 2005.
“McLaren had the best car [at McLaren] at that time, but convergence has always brought the teams together," he said, pointing to lessons from other periods of dominance from Ferrari, Red Bull (under Jean Todt) and Mercedes.
“Inevitably you get to the top of the curve," he explained. You'll continue to get convergence throughout next year as well [but] I think everybody’s getting to the top of the curve.
“One week it’s at the moment Mercedes, one week it’s McLaren, one week it’s Red Bull.," he added. "Ferrari haven’t popped up for a while, so it keeps moving around.”
“Of course we’ve got a big regulation change in 2026 that will cause divergence," Horner added. "But between now and then, I think for the next 18 months it’s going to be flat out between the four teams.”
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