How the mighty can fall. Formula One’s 7 time world champion Lewis Hamilton is having a miserable year. He has only finished ahead of his young gun team mate twice in nine races and is a lowly 6th in the drivers’ championship 98 points behind leader Max Verstappen.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff claimed in January, “I really hope we see him [Hamilton] again. It would be a disgrace for the whole of F1 if the best driver decided to retire because of outrageous decisions.”
Toto was referring to decisions made by the race director at the final round of the 2021 season which decided the title in Max Verstappen’s favour.
Hamilton ‘unfollowed’ everyone on instagram just days after the disappointment in Abu Dhabi fuelling speculation he would retire from Formula One. To the delight of his fans, Hamilton re-appeared on social media some two months later posting “I’ve been gone. Now I’m back.”
Yet Hamilton’s poor form relative to his team mate has persistently promoted speculation that the British driver will quit the sport.
Hamilton was lapped by Max Verstappen at the 2022 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix and Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s consultant, then suggested Hamilton should have retired at the top.
On the bumpy streets of Baku Lewis’ complained over the pit radio that his back was “killing me” and following the race struggled to climb out of his car unassisted. Toto Wolff suggested his driver would not be fit enough to race the following week inn Canada, though Lewis Hamilton quickly denied that he would miss the Montreal race.
READ Wolff bluffing the FIA over Hamilton missing race
At times there appears to be some difference of opinion, even friction, between the Mercedes boss and Hamilton this season. Lewis recently complained he was the team’s ‘guinea pig’ and “Maybe in the second half of the season, George can do the experiments!”.
READ Toto Wolff contradicts Hamilton’s opinion
Recently a number of F1 legends have suggested it might be time for Hamilton to retire based on Wolff’s comments that Lewis had become disillusioned with Formula One.
READ A number of F1 legends suggest Lewis should retire
The latest comments suggesting there may be a rift developing between Lewis and Toto come from ex-F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone who appears to have some inside knowledge.
“Toto is getting a bit fed up with Lewis”, Ecclestone told the Daily Mail.
The 91 year old questions whether Hamilton is really trying. “Lewis doesn’t seem bothered about losing. It’s not like him. He has a competitive nature”.
Ecclestone believes Hamilton is too sanguine about being consistently beaten by his team mate, “He’s taking losing a bit too easy for my liking”.
Astonishingly Ecclestone believes Lewis will take a deal from Mercedes to retire, suggesting that Wolff could end up netting £20m from paying Hamilton out of his contract at a reduced rate.
The problem for Lewis is this story will just not go away.
Maybe Toto Wolff shouldn’t have floated the idea following his lost title in Abu Dhabi and compounding matters is Hamilton’s poor performance relative to his team mate who has finished in the top 5 in each of the 2022 9 rounds so far.
Then again speaking after practice last week in Canada, while complaining about the new FIA car design regulations Hamilton said, “so hopefully that is not something that is going to deter me from racing longer.”
Martin Brundle recently stated he had changed his views on whether Mercedes can fix the troublesome W13 car, something which Lewis Hamilton is clearly very unhappy with.
This is just a bunch of unfounded rumours put together in the form of an article.
Friction between Toto and Lewis? IF there is any Friction it’s aimed at the car being a bouncing piece of crap, which was magically fixed or made better overnight in Montreal, that is beating the hell out of the drivers.
Any article quoting Helmut and Bernie should be qualified as a comedy.
That’s it for me, I was going to say more but I simply cannot be bothered to put in the work, sort if like whomever wrote this article lol I’m joking 😉
Perfectly said and something is wrong Ecclestone brain! Seems like his life is boring and realizing money doesn’t bring happiness. LW is 7 times world champion why should Wolf fed up cos 1 season doesn’t go well? Did Wolf tell him to say such stupid remarks? Certainly not.
Just replace “the universe” with “Wolff” in the heading. Move on, nothing here to see
You all want slap 7 years off the trot not one of the other drivers could do nowt with lewis and to be honest not one off them are in his class and for max you didn’t win that race and if you had out about you you would not of took that crown you jumped around like a divvies but where were you behind lewis you were no where near him until you were allowed to pass everyone so he was right behind the 8 times would champion i lost any respect i had for max after that so i dont blame lewis at all now everyone is shagging lewis off way lewis my advice to you stick two fingers up to them all and walk away then when any of them gets 7yrs back to back win then there have the right to be on the same level as you to everyone in England we all have ya back lewis.
Please do not do this to yourself. Anyone in a Mercedes Benz could have won the last 8 years. Max won last year because MB made a critical Ferrari-type error by not pitting their frontrunner. This year we can exactly see how talented hamilton is.
I completely agree with @BullMastiff’s reply to @Michael Morpeth! With how MB had ceated their car over the last 7-8 years, and how far out in front of everyone they were, anyone who drove it would have won!
As for last year though, I think there were 3 main races of contention:
At Silverstone, Hamilton went in way too hot and completely missed the apex at Copse corner when he bumped Verstappen off the track and into the barriers at I think it was a 51G crash. And to get just a 10 second penalty, when his car was that much quicker than everyone else (besides Verstappen), allowing him to still win the race, I think this was a “penalty” joke!
Monza, neither one wanted to give room to the other, taking them both out. Verstappen had the warmer tyres and had the grip to go around the outside although he could have pulled out of the pass, but Hamilton had the inside line and could have left room for Verstappen and come back later in the lap, but shut Verstappen down instead.
Moving onto the finale, I have a few points:
– Yes, MB were a lot quicker on the day, but you can’t blame RB and Verstappen for MB wanting to keep track position and leaving Hamilton out on old tyres.
– From what I understand, all the teams want to finish under racing conditions and not behind the pace-car, which is something that Masi managed to arrange, and whether it was just the lapped cars between Hamilton and Verstappen that got the go around or all of the lapped cars, Verstappen would have still been right behind Hamilton.
– The confusion on letting the lapped cars go round shouldn’t have happened. If the rules say that the lapped cars should get to go around, they should have been sent around as soon as it was safe, with no interference from Team Managers trying to influence the outcome for their team.
– Finally, if Hamiton is this great driver that everyone keeps saying he is, then why (a) did it take him a lap and a half to get past Perez earlier in the race when Perez was on a lot older tyres, (b) couldn’t he hold off Verstappen for just 1 lap when he should have known that Verstappen was going to try and overtake at the first opportunity.
I have really only been watching F1 for the past few years, but watching his reactions, I believe Hamiton is self-centered, egotistical and entitled, in that he doesn’t seem to take resposibility for anything. If he doesn’t do well, the car is useless. If he can’t pass someone, they are driving dangerously. I think this was most evident over the break between the 21-22 seasons, where he didn’t attend a function he was obligated to attend, then ignored everyone for most of the break, I’m guessing feeling sorry for himself because he didn’t get what he thought he was entitled to!
Ultimately, I think Hamilton not winning the Championship is a bit of karma paying itself back from the Silverstone race, Masi should still be the Race Director, but with help, not just having to do everything on his own, and the sooner that Hamilton does decide to retire, F1 will be better for it!
Just for clarity, I am not a fan of Verstappen either, as he also seems to blame most others as well!
Bernie and Coulthard should keep theyre Opinions to themselves. Bernie should retire nobody wants to listen to his yapping of please Lewis retire cause we really want Schumacher to be seen as the greatest and so should Steward. ENVY IS AN UGLY THING. Coulthard should realize by now that he never was in the same league as the top guys he always just brought the car home. He drove the top cars in his era but always played second fiddle Williams Rothman Renault also the McLaren. Refrain from advising the GOAT if you never been in his league.
Bernie the poison dwarf thinks……
So what?
We were all fed up with him long ago. U sold us out Bernie, u raked in your your billions, now f off and spend them quietly.
Bernie has done more establishing F1 as a global sport than anyone else alive. Hats off to you sir
True or not, after 7 years of the most boring f1 seasons ever… the sooner LH get lost and Merc reaches Williams levels, the better it is for the sport.
Wolf is just a money grabbing two faced prick, Hamilton is obviously the best F1 driver ever, every other driver knows it…all the morons on here who say “anyone could win seven titles because of the car” is thick…so Michael Schumacher only won because of his car ? …dumbasses..