The 2022 season was supposed to be Lewis Hamilton year of revenge after he lost a record-breaking eighth world championship title in infuriating circumstances the previous season.
But for Hamilton and Mercedes, it was more of an ‘annus horribilis‘.
For the first time in his career of unparalleled achievement in F1, Hamilton failed to win a single race over the year. He also struggled with the W13’s laundry list of balance, ride and handling problems and was upstaged by new team mate George Russell.
Perhaps for the first time ever, genuine questions were being asked over whether the sport’s most successful driver of all time was still in that elite tier – or if age was finally starting to rob him of some speed. But team principal Toto Wolff offered an impassioned defence of his driver, insisting Hamilton’s early season struggles in 2022 were down to him acting as Dr Frankenstein to the W13, testing out an array of parts every weekend. As the season progressed, Hamilton seemed to find more form and was regularly ahead of Russell on race days – except for Brazil, where Hamilton’s much younger team mate beat him across the weekend to claim the team’s one win of the season.
So heading into 2023, Hamilton was always going to be one of the most fascinating storylines to follow. Would he be back to being one of the best drivers in the field, or would the critics who said he was past his prime grow more vocal?
Although 2023 proved about as fruitless for Mercedes as the previous season, Hamilton was once again one of the more consistently impressive performers on the grid. Hamstrung by another imperfect Mercedes, which he was blunt in his criticism of from the outset, the seven-times champion appeared to bring the best out of the flawed W14 more frequently than Russell did – even if he lacked the outstanding results in another year utterly dominated by Red Bull.
Over a season where the form of teams behind the champions fluctuated wildly, almost on a race-to-race basis, Hamilton ensured that he was scoring solid points for his team every Sunday. Over the first 16 rounds of the championship, Hamilton finished inside the top six positions on Sundays 15 times – almost twice as many as Russell’s eight. Hamilton also made a habit of finishing higher than he qualified, showing that his racecraft has not gotten rusty in his time away from the very front of the field.
When Mercedes found their form…
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