No matter how many world championship titles Lewis Hamilton has achieved over the years, nothing could have softened the brutal blow of losing the 2021 world championship in the manner in which he did.
Having avoided the public gaze while coming to terms with his season ending in such stunning fashion, Hamilton eventually reappeared at Mercedes’ February launch. They began 2022 with a fierce determination to reassert their dominance over Red Bull and the rest of the grid once more but instead endured their worst season of their decade-long partnership.
The W13 had fundamental problems, which was clear from its first run, and did not improve through testing. The eight-times constructors’ championship showed up to the Bahrain test with eye-catching sidepods, slim to the point of non-existent, and were alarmed when they did not yield the anticipated gains.
The car was far from the pace of the Ferrari and the Red Bull – a point proved beyond doubt when Hamilton qualified fifth on the grid to start the season in Bahrain, behind all four of them. Indeed, keeping the rest of the midfield behind proved a challenge for the first half of the season.
Despite the relative lack of performance from the W13, Hamilton achieved the best result he could have by taking an unexpected spot on the podium behind the Ferraris, courtesy of Red Bull’s double failure late in the race. But Mercedes knew they had a mountain to climb to address the core problems with their new ground effect car and had to find some kind of a solution to their aerodynamic porpoising and lack of downforce if they could even begin to hope to challenge for the titles this year.
The early rounds of 2022 effectively became test sessions for Mercedes as both drivers – but predominately the more experienced Hamilton – ploughed through a huge checklist of experimental parts and settings to help the team at Brackley work out how to solve their problems. But Hamilton was still competing over these early weekends and in Jeddah, he had possibly his worst performance of the season. Having failed to make it out of the first stage of qualifying, he gradually rose up the order in the race, but missed an opportunity to pit under Virtual Safety Car and came home with the final point in tenth, five places behind Russell.
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