Hamilton in the house at Brackley to 'beat the drum'

Lewis Hamilton spent the day at Mercedes' headquarters on Friday meeting with the Brackley squad's engineers as the team regroups after Suzuka and prepares for the final leg of the 2023 season.

Hamilton and teammate George Russell were outpaced in Japan, not only by Red Bull, which was expected, but also by both McLaren drivers and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.

Given the relatively downbeat performance, it's likely that Hamilton injected an air of determination and urgency into Mercedes' preparations for the final part of its campaign, but also more importantly for next season.

The Briton has repeatedly urged his team in the past weeks to follow an all-new approach for 2024, although he admitted that bridging the gap to Red Bull next year is an achievement that will take "the greatest six months of development" in the team's history.

The seven-time world champion, ever the driving force both on and off the track, will have been eager while in Brackley to observe firsthand the course set out by Mercedes' aerodynamicists for next year, although he admitted in Japan that he can "only beat the drum so much".

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• Mercedes: Still 'plenty of things' we can do with W14

While next year's machine will hold the team's hopes of reclaiming the world title, Hamilton will no doubt part ways with little regret with Mercedes' W14, although he refuted team boss Toto Wolff's comment that the team "will throw this one in the bin when it's really fast and then embark on a new journey".

Regardless of its poor track record, the machine remains in Hamilton's view a marvel of engineering crafted and built by a team of impassioned individuals.

"We won't ever bin the car of course," he said. "These cars are still masterpieces, really, even if they're not the fastest car in the world.

"Two-thousand people have worked so hard to build these things and they will continue to be a part of our history and our learning curve.

"There will be bits of it that we try to change, try to hold on to some of the positives because there's always positives, good and bad sides, and so we're trying to hold on to the positives.

"With the new direction we have, it's far too early to say we can be optimistic about next year's car because we are just in the process of going into that, but I have full faith in the crew that they're going to take it in the direction that it needs to go.

"There's been a lot of learning in these past two years so if we haven't figured it out by next year then obviously we will just keep working away at it, but I'm hoping that they have."

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