"Lewis Hamilton still seems to be searching for that magic bullet" - Mercedes driver's approach questioned by F1 pundit

F1 pundit Gary Anderson has claimed that Lewis Hamilton is "searching for that magic bullet" to overhaul his performances after a dismal start to the 2024 season.

The seven-time world champion's farewell season with Mercedes hasn't been going according to his plan as he has been struggling to get hold of the W15 and hasn't extracted the same performance out of the car as his teammate George Russell.

After a promising start to the recently concluded Chinese GP, Lewis Hamilton finished P2 in the Sprint Qualifying and held onto the position in the Sprint race. But he couldn't replicate his performance a couple of hours later in qualifying as he finished P18 and hobbled to finish P9 in the main race.

In his column for The Telegraph, Gary Anderson debated the reason for drastically changing the setup despite a successful Sprint race. He wrote:

“Why overhaul this setup rather than simply tweaking it? It was a bizarre decision. Optimization of the W15 is what Russell’s approach seems to be. He showed what the car can do, this is where they are and Hamilton and the team need to accept that.

"Hamilton still seems to be searching for that magic bullet that will suddenly see him leap to the front. Well, in all my years in motorsport, I have never seen that happen.”

Lewis Hamilton analyzes his Chinese GP performance after his P9 finish

Lewis Hamilton has stated that it was a 'tough' race for him as he returned to the points but accepted his mistake while referencing the setup change.

As per F1.com, the Mercedes driver said:

"I went forwards and got into the points, but it was a tough race. Ultimately, I made a bad set-up change to the car yesterday and I paid the price for it.

"I plan to make sure I don’t do that in the future! The car does seem to work in a small window, and I did think it was the correct thing to do. Sadly, it made today very difficult."

Lewis Hamilton sits on P9 in the Driver's Championship with 19 points, three places down with teammate George Russell, who has amassed 33 points.

The seven-time world champion needs to restart his season in the next race and look to build on his weekend and not make the same error as he did in China as the Miami GP weekend will also host the Sprint race.