Lewis Hamilton’s latest F1 prediction with Valtteri Bottas at centre of intense criticism – round-up

Your F1 news round-up is here, with Lewis Hamilton having made a prediction for the rest of the 2024 season that should get our excitement up.

As ever, there is a lot to get through, so let’s not waste any more time, shall we?

Lewis Hamilton makes exciting F1 2024 prediction

Now into his final 10 races with Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton is predicting an exciting second half of the season, with up to four teams able to compete for victories each weekend.

“It’s really fantastic, I think, for the sport, to be having such close teams and drivers,” he said. “The pedigree of drivers at the top today is really elite and amazing.

“We didn’t expect to be competing with the McLarens or the Red Bulls at this point in the season, you know, with how we started off, so for us to now have closed up and be… It’s going to be one hell of a second half of the season, for sure.”

Read more: Lewis Hamilton issues exciting F1 2024 prediction in final Mercedes farewell tour

Picking through the data for each race winner for the rest of 2024

On that theme, our resident data expert, Pablo Hidalgo, has run the numbers to forecast which team he believes will be the winner of each race for the remainder of the season.

Based on the track characteristics, team performance and other factors beyond that, he has delved into the data so you don’t have to.

Read more: McLaren 5-3 Red Bull: Predicting the winners of the final F1 2024 races to come

Valtteri Bottas on the end of stinging criticism

Dutch racing driver Tom Coronel wasn’t the kindest when assessing the season of Valtteri Bottas so far, despite the 10-time Grand Prix winner having largely out-performed Zhou Guanyu in the same machinery this year.

Rating the Finn’s first 14 races 4.5/10, the Dutch pundit told Formule 1 Magazine : “We can expect more from a driver like Valtteri Bottas.

“It’s always difficult when you go from the best team to the worst team, but then I’d rather a young talent get a chance there.

“Bottas just has to stop, it’s over! Zero world championship points, get out of here!”

Read more: ‘Rotting’ Grand Prix winner told F1 career ‘over’ and is ‘destroying’ young drivers’ dreams

Sergio Perez ‘change’ spotted after on-track tussles with Max Verstappen

After Sergio Perez had designs on a potential World Championship challenge last year that were quickly quashed, Formula 1 journalist Erik van Haren explained a theory that he now “knows his place” at Red Bull after a strong start to the season, but he did not echo those sentiments this time around.

He told the F1 Nation podcast: “I think it changed a bit after ’22 when they had their incidents as well in Monaco and Sao Paulo. Last year as well, at the beginning, Checo started really good, but I think now this year it changed.

“He won two of the first four races [in 2023] and then he was saying: ‘I want to be Champion.’ And his father was quite a big voice in the Mexican media.

“And this year, we didn’t see anything of that at the beginning of the year when Checo was in quite good form as well.”

Read more: New Sergio Perez ‘change’ theory emerges after tension with Max Verstappen

Answering your burning questions ahead of the Dutch GP

Our journalist on the ground at Zandvoort this weekend will be Sam Cooper, and he and Elizabeth Blackstock took time to answer your questions ahead of the first race after Formula 1’s summer break.

There were lots of you who submitted them, and Sam in particular answered as many as he could ahead of what should be a fantastic weekend – including, among the Formula 1 insight, a shout-out to Ipswich Town. He does love that club, after all.

Read more: F1 Q&A: Max Verstappen overrated? Lance Stroll to be bought an F1 title? And many more