Lewis Hamilton had the gut wrenching experience of seeing his record breaking eighth Formula One world title snatched from his grasp with less than a lap remaining of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2021. The Mercedes star then went dark, leaving his millions of fans on social media wondering of he would even return for the following season.
Yet like him or not, Hamilton is a competitor and he came back only to discover his all conquering Mercedes team had failed to grasp the new car design rules and no longer could Lewis cruise to victory with ease week in and week out.
Hamilton: F1 “cars not hard enough to drive”
Back in 2019 there was a huge discussion taking place during the early summer about why F1 drivers were not drug tested more regularly and of course Lewis aired his views on the matter to assembled media in Monaco. He explained that F1 drivers are tested just 2-3 times a year unlike in other sports but reasoned this was appropriate.
“Drug testing is random, I would say it is around three times a year maybe or maybe less,” Hamilton replied when quizzed by reporters in Spain. “There used to be a point where there was quite a bit of testing away from the track, back home or in hotels, that sort of thing. But honestly, this is not a sport where you need to do anything.
“It is not like in cycling where you need more blood flowing through the heart or more oxygen. We are not fatiguing. In all honesty, the cars are not hard enough to drive.
“It should be more physical. I think in 2021, they maybe need to get rid of power steering, for example. We should be massively depleted afterwards. That’s how sport should be,” concluded the then six times world champion.
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F1 fairy godmother delivers
Mercedes were on the back of five consecutive 1-2 finishes at the time, with the compliant Valterri Bottas having out qualified his champion team mate by just 59 one thousands of a second in Baku. The ‘flying Finn’ went on to take the race victory keeping the Mercedes winning streak alive.
It appears Lewis now has his wish come true as the fairy godmother of F1 instigated the biggest change in the car regulation design rules the sport has ever seen for the 2022 season. Mercedes for three years have failed to unlock the secrets to the new ground effect cars and currently are way behind the Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren teams.
Having had enough, Hamilton finally threw the towel in announcing his departure for Maranello in February this year, just a few months after signing a ‘multi-year contract’ with the silver arrows team. Yet Lewis reasons for wanting to leave Mercedes may run deeper than just a fancy for driving the iconic red liveried F1 cars before he retires.
Regardless how good or bad your F1 car is compared to others, theres a consistent measure of a drivers capabilities and that’s how they stack up when compared to their team mate in the same machinery. Lewis is currently experiencing the worst run of his 17 year F1 career when this measure is applied.
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Team mate margins closer than ever
Hamilton is currently 7-1 down to Russell this season in Grand Prix qualifying and made an oblique comment last time out in Monaco that he would not be out qualifying George for the rest of this year. Yet if we look at the gap between the best average lap times between team mates in qualifying this season, the Mercedes pair are second only behind the McLaren duo.
Norris-Piastri 0.042s
Russell-Hamilton 0.062s
Ocon-Gasly 0.104s
Tsunoda-Ricciardo 0.104s
Leclerc-Sainz 0.156s
Alonso-Stroll 0.218s
Bottas-Zhou 0.265s
Hulkenberg-Magnussen 0.276s
Albon-Sargeant 0.277s
Verstappen-Perez 0.302s
*This includes qualifying for the two Sprint events this year. Data courtesy of TheRace.com
The first detail this list reveals is Sergio Perez is in serious trouble in his battle to retain his drive for 2025 at Red Bull Racing. For eight race weekends in a row this year we’ve heard Christian Horner telling us Checo has improved this season, but following Charles Leclerc win in Monaco, he now sits third in the race for the drivers’ world title.
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George 7 – Lewis 1
However we spin the minutia, this list still means the score between George and Lewis is 7-1 to the younger man. If we check out the two previous year’s the pair have been team mates we see last season Russell was ahead 12-9 with an average margin of just 0.017s, while in 2022 Hamilton was ahead 11-5 (comparable sessions only) with an even smaller 0.015s margin between the duo.
Russell left the uncompetitive Williams team just as Mercedes ended their run of eight consecutive constructor championships and the W13-15 cars he has driven are a shadow of the capabilities of their former machinery. So the best measure of George’s true abilities come from his stand in role in Sakhir in 2020.
Hamilton had tested positive for Covid-19 and for the first time since the season finale in Brazil 2006, he failed to take his place on the starting grid. Russell deputised for Lewis jumping into a car in which his large frame didn’t fit going on to embarrass the other regular Mercedes driver with his pace.
Russell is one of the best drivers on the grid but with the exception of Sau Paulo in 2022, his Mercedes days have been plagued by having a car not capable of winning races. Yet nobody puts a shoddy Williams car on the front row in a wet weekend at Spa-Francorchamps or third on the grid in Sochi in the wet unless they are exceptional.
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“The bubble had somewhat slowed down”
Russell’s latent genius is the reason Lewis is 7-1 down to his team mate in qualifying this season and the driver from Kings Lynn will surely have his day in the sun. The assumption that Hamilton’s travails are due to the underperforming car are made week in and out yet as the British driver approaches 40 years of age the obvious question marks over whether this is the reason for his decline in performance are hard to avoid.
Whilst there is no neurological reason for the dip in Lewis’ capabilities, age does affect Grand Prix drivers in different ways. Fernando Alonso is cited as the modern day Juan Manuel Fangio who at 46 years of age won the F1 drivers’ title in 1957. Yet the devastating loss of what could have been his record breaking eighth title on the last lap of the last race in 2021 can’t be underestimated when considering Lewis’ current motivation.
As Mark Hughes notes writing for the Race, “NASCAR legend Richard Petty once described how it felt in the latter years of his career when he was no longer competitive (but at an age well in excess of Hamilton’s).”
“Inside my own bubble, everything felt exactly as it always had,” he said. “But it was as if the bubble had somehow slowed down.”
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One final hurrah for Hamilton
Next year is critical for Lewis Hamilton. He leaves his lifelong sponsor in Mercedes to join the iconic Formula One team with the red livery. With Charles Leclerc touted as a future F1 world champion but never having the car to deliver this, Lewis will be tested more than ever in his mission to claim that exclusive eight title.
Hamilton when speaking on drugs and how the cars were too easy to drive now has his wish come true as the ground effect cars are proving difficult for even the best to control.
Indeed next season could be the year Hamilton decides enough is enough if his score is 7-1 down to Leclerc in qualifying, with a third of the season complete. Ferrari have dropped the very competitive Carlos Sainz for the marketing power Hamilton brings. But it won’t take long before they are looking for the next young F1 superstar if Lewis fails to cut the mustard.
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At the end of 2022, Binotto called time on his work at Ferrari after 28 years with the Scuderia in a variety of roles. Officially the split was amicable, but behind closed doors it was said that his relationship with Ferrari bosses was no longer the best and he was simply given the boot… READ MORE
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I have followed Hamilton’s career with interest over many years. If the reports I have read are correct and from what Lewis has said since the last reg changes came into force, he, as the more experiences driver, has been the one testing various settings on the car to try and make improvements for both himself and George. This will continue this season, especially since Lewis is leaving Merc at tge end of the season, as was shown by George having the new wing on his car at Monaco. Lewis’s role now is to support George and the team and his words and actions so far seem to support the fact that he is happy to do this.
Not sure how you see this? Lewis is constantly complaining that Mercedes is favoring Russell, and not just this year. I don’t think he’s happy at all playing second fiddle, another reason for the move to Ferrari.