Lewis Hamilton agrees with George Russell on Mercedes chief despite suspicions
Mercedes stars Lewis Hamilton and George Russell insist that outgoing chief technical officer Mike Elliott is not to blame for the Silver Arrows’ inconsistent form over the last two years. It was confirmed this week that the long-serving Elliott had surprisingly left the team ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Elliott spent 11 years with Mercedes and was key to many of Hamilton’s World Championship triumphs. However, he has come under scrutiny for the team’s struggles since the start of 2022.
Russell claimed Mercedes’ only victory of the last two years in Brazil 12 months ago. But performance struggles and the inconsistency of the British pair have largely seen Mercedes underperform.
Both drivers have insisted, though, that Elliott cannot be blamed. That is despite some suggestions that Hamilton’s frequent complaints about the developments of last year’s W13 car and this season’s W14 vehicle have been too slow.
“What we have to remember is nothing is down to one person,” Hamilton said in Brazil. “We do everything as a team. There are so many moving parts at the factory, so there’s not a single individual responsible for where we are, it’s a collective.
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“It’s his decision to move on and do something different. I wish him absolutely all the best and I’m super grateful for all his contributions over these years. I know whatever he’s going to do next, he’s going to be great because he’s a super brain.”
Mercedes team-mate Russell added: “It was never one individual who makes or breaks success. It’s always a collective. You always have a leader, someone at the helm who steers the ship.
“As the saying goes ‘we win and lose together’. Mike has been a huge part of the team and it’s very important that we remember he was the chief aerodynamicist during all of the glory years, and arguably, alongside the technical director, that is the most vital part of every F1 team, so Mike has been a huge part of that success and I wish him well.”
It comes after Sky Sports F1 expert Craig Slater suggested that Hamilton’s ‘restraint’ in the way he aired grievances in 2022 might have been because he did not want to publicly criticise individuals he felt were to blame.
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Slater told the Sky F1 Podcast: “The rearrangement at Mercedes over the last two years, not saying Lewis was negative in any way in 2022, but there was a kind sobriety and restraint about the way he would speak.
“And I sense now, he’s much more on the front foot again. I think he feels that yes, the building blocks and the right people are in place, in terms of where the car development is going.
“That little quote I made was almost, was that in reference to Mike Elliott, or the engineers who want to go a different way from the kind of Red Bull path that Mercedes have now adopted?”
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