Last Updated on January 31 2024, 2:48 pm
Lewis Hamilton for many years has been the poster boy for Formula One and his every move has promoted the sport around there world both on and off the sport’s pages. Yet there’s a new kid in town called Max Verstappen who is smashing records even Hamilton never achieved.
Ten consecutive race wins in 2023 beat the previous best set by Sebastian Vettel. Hamilton’s best run of race wins despite for years having a dominant Mercedes car is five bu there is one record Lewis coverts more than the rest. An eight drivers’ world title.
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Yet with hindsight it seems more an more as though the dust in Abu Dhabi which was kicked up by race director Michael Massi and shrouded the end of the 2021 season, when it finally settles will see Hamilton stranded on seven world titles equal with Michael Schumacher.
Mercedes have spectacularly missed the mark with the new F1 car design regulations which arrived for 2022. After two years of building a car based on a flawed concept the team admits they will start from scratch this season, now two years behind the likes of Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari.
As the 2023 season drew to a close it was McLaren and Ferrari who were the form team behind Red Bull. Ferrari closed a deficit of nearly 70 points to just three on Mercedes who scrapped home second and McLaren outscore the former world champions since round nine in Austria.
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella revealed last week that the simulations for the 2024 car revealed a straight line continuation of the performance improvement they delivered last season, something which would make their new F1 challenger quicker than the retiring RB19.
Alonso cited as Hamilton’s example
Hamilton has failed to win a race for over two years and Mercedes only success in that time was through George Russell at the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Many cite the hunger of Fernando Alonso who is 42 years of age as the reason why Lewis Hamilton will continue on regardless. And given he will turn 40e before the start of next year, Hamilton has just 22 more races before he enters his fifth decade.
Yet Lewis has a different psyche to Alonso and has demonstrated when things are going wrong his mental approach leaves something to be desired.
During the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix Lewis race looked to be wrecked following a coming together with Kevin Magnussen. Both suffered punctures and the Mercedes driver rejoined at the back of the field.
Minor points scoring positions
Hamilton came over the radio telling the team he thought they should “save the engine” and retire the car. Toto Wolff intervened telling his driver to focus on racing and the result was Lewis came through the field to finish a credible P5.
Having won a record 103 Formula One races and seven championship, it must be difficult for Hamilton to fight for the minor points scoring positions, something which Sebastian Vettel found tough and alluded to when he announced his retirement.
Mercedes may well start the season with only the fourth best car and this could be the scenario Lewis finds himself for most of the coming year. So even though he penned a new two year contract which should see him at Mercedes to the end of 2025 there’s no guarantee he will remain in the sport if he feels his car is inferior and theres no apparent light at the end of the tunnel.
All this of course has been speculative reasoning from F1 writers until now when Hamilton has confirmed he could retire before he reaches the age of 40.
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Hamilton says he may retire before 2025
“That is still possible,” he told FORMULA 1 Magazine on the prospect of leaving F1 pre-40. “I have no set plan for the future. I still feel fit and still enjoy what I do.
“I have now learned that you should never say ‘never’ in life.”
Of course if the next generation of drivers like Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are having success and outscoring the Mercedes pair, the realisation it may be time to pass on the baton on could quickly become an undeniable fact for Lewis to face.
Mercedes of course would not stand in his way or hold him to his contract given the years of success Hamilton has brought to the brand.
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Enough is enough
“I never thought that after such a long time in Formula 1, I would still feel the same love for the sport,” Lewis adds going on to explain his feelings for F1.
“It is a hate-love relationship, at times you love it more than at others.”
Few Formula One drivers retire at the top of their game and as Jenson Button admitted, trailing around for the odd point having once been world champion makes it extremely difficult to stay motivated. Even so knowing when to retire seems hard to gauge.
“I think there comes a point when you’ve had enough. But the love is still there,” says Hamilton.
Hamilton won’t hang on for an 8th
Of course a record breaking eight world championship would be the carrot most drivers would cling to regardless of their team’s performance. However, Lewis suggest this is not the case.
“I never said that an eighth title would be the end point,” he said. “And I don’t know what follows after driving in Formula 1. I don’t necessarily feel the desire to remain active in Formula 1 any longer, but as I said before: never say ‘never’.
“I can’t imagine not driving anymore and still being in a pit box somewhere. I would probably think: ‘I could stick with it for another year, then I could still participate.’ So it would probably be better to take a sabbatical and then see if I would still like to come back.”
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Hamilton sabbatical on the cards
Lewis Hamilton has one eye on the next big rule change coming in 2026 when the power units are radically changed. The last time this happened in 2014 was the beginning of Mercedes dominance for eight years and Hamilton’s run of six drivers’ titles in seven seasons.
The big question is whether Mercedes would bring back Lewis a year after he quit, or whether its time for the team to look for a new hero.
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With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
Why is ‘raysis’ or racism always brought up when fans are incapable of arguing a point? It does my head in. Very few are actually racist in the world and those that are tend to be ignorant. But be it this site or any number of others, always the go to threat is about race.
When Morgan Freeman was asked in interview how to stop racism, after George Floyd’s death, he replied ‘stop talking about it!’ Chris Rock in his comedy routines will often speak about how skewed all this is but there’s many more.
As to car? The truth is if you look at F1 over the decades, rules have consistently been changed to slow the speeds down. In the early 2000’s every year the FIA changed the landscape to derail a dominant Ferrari. In the years 2010-2013, every regulation seemed designed to affect Red Bull.
Between 2014 and 2020, the rules were such that the competition to Mercedes had tokens to upgrade their engines every year, but so did Mercedes. In effect guaranteeing that Mercedes could not be caught.
Only in 2021 when they changed the aero rules and it appeared to penalise Mercedes and Racing Point more than the others was something done about level playing fields. And still Wolff bleated about it.
I’d imagine from what you wrote, you’re not a seasoned F1 watcher but for pity’s sake don’t cast down the R card every time an argument doesn’t appeal to you.
What are you smoking? There’s no mention at all of race in this article. Seems to me the only clowns that bring up the race card are the racists themselves