Fresh Lewis Hamilton data reveals huge advantage in final ...

Lewis Hamilton completed an epic comeback in his final race for Mercedes at the Abu Dhabi GP, racing from 16th on the grid to fourth at the chequered flag.

The seven-time World Champion was 18th in qualifying but lined up P16 due to penalties for other racers before crossing the line in fourth place, overtaking team-mate George Russell on the final lap with a manoeuvre to cap his final masterpiece with the Silver Arrows.

Hamilton started the race with a different tyre strategy to the other drivers on the grid. On the hard tyre, Mercedes’ aim for their star driver’s last dance was to enjoy clean air to demonstrate the pace of the W15 and the British driver.

The start couldn’t have been better for Hamilton, who took advantage of early incidents on lap 1 between Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri at Turn 1 and later between Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas at the chicane at Turns 6 and 7 to move up to four positions.

The first stint on the hard tyre was tricky and he was stuck behind Liam Lawson for almost 10 laps, losing a wide gap to Verstappen.

The Dutch driver after his incident with Piastri at Turn 1 continued his race just ahead of Lewis and with the medium tyre and a better initial pace was able to move up positions more easily, but still having to make up a 10-second deficit on track for being ‘wholly’ to blame as the stewards determined in his accident with the McLaren driver.

Luckily for Lewis, Russell was also hampered. In his case by Pierre Gasly in third position. As in Qatar, the Alpine’s top speed once again proved to be the biggest enemy of those looking to move up the field with a better race pace.

Once he was able to overtake Lawson, the race situation also played in Hamilton’s favour. Drivers such as Gasly and Nico Hülkenberg who had to fight each other for sixth in the Constructors’ Championship committed to a two-stop strategy, which then became a one-stop ‘survival’ strategy.

In this way, they allowed Mercedes to explore with Hamilton the option of doing a one-stop, but in an optimised manner.

And this also opened up the possibility of stretching the first stint with the hard tyre as much as possible in case a Virtual Safety Car or Safety Car was deployed. A very clever strategy from the Brackley team, who had a very clear race plan for Hamilton.

Even after Gasly’s early pit stop on lap 15, which left Russell in clean air, Lewis started to have a better pace on the hard tyre than him on the medium tyre, as from lap 18 Russell started to be clearly slower. It was the moment to really start thinking about pitting for those struggling like Russell and Verstappen with the medium tyre.

This is exactly the data that would later be used by the Mercedes strategy team to assess the ideal time to call Hamilton into the pits to make his pit stop and make the most of the tyre life of the medium tyre in the final stages of the race. That is also with a lighter car due to the lower level of fuel inside the car’s tank.

Russell pitted on lap 27, just like the race leader, and although he was again behind Gasly by a few tenths of a second, he soon overtook the Frenchman on the out-lap as the Alpine driver had already accumulated 12 laps on his hard tyre.

Alpine and Haas were already engaged in their own battle. The gap between Russell and Hamilton before this pit stop was 8.767 seconds.

Meanwhile, Hamilton was trying to close the gap to Verstappen. The Red Bull driver had a good pace, but could not open a gap able to compensate his 10 second-penalty that he would serve in the pits on lap 30 and, in this way, he definitely fell behind Hamilton who completed the overcut.

Hamilton extended his pit stop until lap 35. He came out behind Gasly and Hülkenberg with seven seconds of clean air, a softer tyre and over 20 laps fresher than those of the Alpine and Haas drivers. The gap to Russell who was ahead of these two drivers and on the eight-lap old hard tyre was +17.691 seconds with 22 laps to go.

Hamilton caught up and overtook the Haas driver on lap 41 and two laps later he did the same with Gasly to move to P5 and reducing this way the gap to Russell below 13 seconds with 15 laps to go.

And it was here that Lewis pulled out his final ‘Hammer Time’ for Mercedes. A classic Mercedes pitwall move – playing the hunter and prey – this time against his very own team-mate.

The seven-time World Champion finally hunted down Russell on the final lap to take P4. And he didn’t do it in just any old way. He did it with an overtake worthy of the ‘overtake of the month’ award with a move on the outside of turn 9 with great traction from his medium tyre and after having taken advantage of the DRS and slipstream effect of his teammate’s car.

Hamilton was unrivalled in the second stint. The seven-time world champion was the fastest driver on track in terms of average pace by far thanks to the advantage of having a softer and differentially fresher tyre.

After starting the race in P16, Hamilton and Mercedes capped the longest-running partnership between a driver and team in Formula 1 by maximising their chances and achieving the best possible result in their final race together in Abu Dhabi.

Hamilton outperformed Russell in their last dance, although this season the future Mercedes No.1 has outperformed him in both qualifying and race head-to-head. No other of Hamilton’s team-mates had achieved this before in 18 years.

Still, this final show should be a huge confidence and motivation boost before Hamilton swaps silver for Ferrari red starting from the F1 2025 season. Hamilton has not forgotten that he is a fast driver and he proved it again at the Yas Marina circuit.

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