13th place at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Imola was a new low in Lewis Hamilton’s 2022 Formula 1 season. After the dramatic defeat against Max Verstappen at the 2021 World Cup final in Abu Dhabi, the Mercedes driver had hoped to hit back in 2022 with the long-awaited eighth title. But it doesn’t look like that at all at the moment.
And when a superstar in his sport stumbles like the seven-time world champion is doing, the first rumors of retirement are not far away. “Sky” therefore asked team boss Toto Wolff whether he was really sure that Hamilton would fulfill his Mercedes contract, which runs until the end of 2023. Wolff’s answer: “I assume so. That’s what I’m noticing at the moment.”
The current low is not Hamilton’s low, “but it is a low in the performance of our car,” says the Austrian before Formula 1’s first guest appearance in Miami. Hamilton is, he clarifies, “the best driver in the world. He just doesn’t have the car to show his class.”
Wolff: No doubt about Hamilton’s ability
“It doesn’t matter if you finish eighth or twelfth or 15. It’s all bad. But the big stars have always recovered from such phases. In any case, I can’t think of a real sporting great that isn’t a bad one phase in her career. And Lewis has been doing pretty well for quite a while now.”
“We know he’s a seven-time world champion. Last year he and we caught up as a team and fought our way back to the World Cup when it seemed lost in Brazil on Saturday. And now he’s going to help us solve the problems. We stick together in good times and bad,” emphasizes Wolff and admits that Imola was “a bad day”.
Why was Hamilton so far behind Russell at Imola?
However, and this is currently an issue for many Mercedes fans (and also Mercedes haters) in various communities, it cannot be denied that Hamilton, at least in Imola, was clearly at a disadvantage against his teammate George Russell in the same car. A fact that does not give Wolff any major headaches.
Hamilton couldn’t work his way up because he was stuck in the DRS train: “Lewis was definitely faster than Gasly or Albon or the others before him, but it only has a DRS straight, and if you don’t have the top speed, you can’t overtake,” Wolff defended the Mercedes star.
“Both drivers are doing their best and are currently driving above the level that the car is actually capable of. George was rewarded with a result after an exceptional start, after driving a less than ideally tuned car terrifically. While Lewis was at the back of the field stuck.”
Abu Dhabi the key to Hamilton’s low?
With this, Wolff takes the wind out of the sails of critics who suspect that Hamilton is not currently driving at his best level. That was the subject of Wednesday’s Formula 1 analysis by “Sky” with our editor-in-chief Christian Nimmervoll, but also in a current video on the Formel1.de YouTube channel.
Formula 1 legend Gerhard Berger expresses the suspicion that Hamilton “due to the loss of this championship last year has reached his very big goal of being the most successful racing driver of all time [zu werden]not yet achieved” and may have suffered a psychological crack as a result, which is why he may now have difficulties motivating himself.
Berger believes that Hamilton sees “his skins swimming away, because if he doesn’t have a top car for a year or two, he can’t become one, and then this dream hangs in the air. And I can understand that quite well. That has to be his first goal and that’s the biggest disappointment for him right now, I think.”
Former engineer knows Hamilton from before
In the same video on the Formel1.de YouTube channel, former Mercedes engineer Philipp Brändle, who worked closely with Hamilton until 2019, also comments on the current situation. Hamilton is usually very level-headed even in crises and “has become calmer over the years, and he’s really always pondering internally: What can you do?”
“For example, during the 2016 season, when Nico Rosberg became world champion, he brutally matured again and took another extreme step in his personal attitude about how hard he has to work on himself. But of course he demands exactly that from the team, and Of course you have to see that,” says Brändle.
“You saw that in the last two years, when things were relatively tight with Red Bull: Everything that he works hard on himself and criticizes and demands of himself, he naturally also does with the team. He’s allowed to do that. He is the leader, he’s definitely the number one driver – or at least has always been in the past. And that’s a personal attitude.”
Brändle doesn’t believe that Hamilton will give up and end his career or leave Mercedes prematurely due to the current difficult phase: “He’s experienced a lot. And he hasn’t always just walked away with victories. That’s why I think there’s a bit of a stubbornness there.”
Wolff on Russell: “Tough, without great emotions”
However, it is pleasing to see how positively Russell is developing. Toto Wolff grins, “we’ve already laughed about it within the team. We said: ‘Now you thought you finally had the chance to drive up front here – and now our car isn’t good enough!’ But he just works it out.”
Russell was “tough, without much emotion – and that’s the right attitude. The attitude of a future world champion.” In general, he was “very impressed with how George has settled in. How professionally and analytically he helps to grasp the situation. That’s one of the few highlights that we’re experiencing on this trip.”
“The two work together without friction, on the contrary they are very productive. I couldn’t be happier with our drivers. I think we have the top two drivers – or two of the top three drivers – on the team. They deserve a car, with which they can win and not one with which they can be lapped,” says Wolff.