Lewis Hamilton is offering a $1 million prize for the answer to the mysterious Mercedes W15 question

Lewis Hamilton has promised to offer a $1 million prize to anyone who can figure out why the Mercedes W15 remains so inconsistent at this late stage of the 2024 F1 season.

After suffering two consecutive winless seasons in 2022/2023, Hamilton returned to the top step of the podium earlier this year with an emotional home win at his home race at Silverstone.

Lewis Hamilton wants an answer to the question about the million-dollar Mercedes W15

The seven-time world champion followed that up with another win at Spa weeks later, taking a record-extending 105th career victory.

Despite the growing confidence that Mercedes Having finally met the requirements of the ground effect rules, the team has largely struggled since the summer holidays, with Hamilton not finishing higher than fourth in the last seven races.

His season fell to a new low at last weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix, where he described the car on team radio as “the worst” ever.

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After announcing in February that he will sign a multi-year contract with Ferrari from F1 2025, Hamilton has just three races left with Mercedes before parting ways with the German manufacturer.

And he has described the second half of the season as ‘devastating’ as he hoped to finish on a high with the Brackley-based team.

He told reporters in Sao Paulo: “It obviously doesn’t feel good.

“It’s devastating to have these bad races in the second half of the season but all I can say is we try to get on the weekends but that’s absolutely not acceptable. It’s definitely not good enough.

“We have to take responsibility, I have to take responsibility, but I’m doing the best with what I have.

“For some reason the car has had the worst of it this weekend and I don’t know what it is. We’ll have to find out what it is.

“But still, the mechanics did a great job getting here early this morning, the practice (pit) stops at 4am and all the work they did on the car all weekend.

“One of the cars functioned a lot better, so there is clearly still potential.”

When asked why the Mercedes is still so temperamental, he laughed: “Just saying. That’s the million dollar question. So if you can find it, I’ll give you a million dollars.

Hamilton had the honor of driving the title-winning 1990 McLaren of his childhood idol, Ayrton Senna, ahead of Sunday’s race, as Interlagos marked the 30th anniversary of the F1 legend’s death.

The 39-year-old described it as the highlight of his weekend, with the Mercedes W15 being “not good” in comparison.

He said: “The race sucked, but driving Senna’s car was the best thing ever, so I’m still happy and grateful to have had that experience here at Interlagos.

“A great reception from the fans. They were incredible this weekend. I think the fans showed up at 3am this morning, an incredible effort from the fans here this weekend.

‘And let’s not talk about the car, because it’s not good.

“Yesterday was terrible, today was terrible. Yesterday was bad. Qualifying was bad. The sprint race was bad. The car has been bad all weekend.”

Hamilton’s poor performance came on a day when teammate George Russell led the first stage of the race, before Mercedes’ call to pit shortly before the red flag cost him a chance at victory.

Russell’s fourth place put him two points ahead of Hamilton in the drivers’ standings with three races remaining, with Russell beating his illustrious teammate 16 times in 21 races – not including sprint qualifying sessions – in F1 2024.

Hamilton claimed he didn’t care where he finished compared to Russell in the final standings, adding that he just wants to “keep the car out of the wall” at this stage of the season.

He added: “I’m not fighting for the championship. It doesn’t really matter where we finish in the championship. It doesn’t matter to me if I finish in front of George or behind George, it doesn’t make any difference to me.

“I just want to keep the car out of the wall and try to score points if I can for the team.

“If they give me a car that doesn’t bounce off the track in the next few races, hopefully we can get a better result.

“But I’m looking forward to Christmas.”

Read the following: The Brazilian GP shows that the time is ripe for a new Lewis Hamilton start