‘Is it me or the automotive?’: Lewis Hamilton after a second straight 12 months with no win
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Lewis Hamilton admitted to questioning if he ‘nonetheless has it’ after Mercedes had one other disappointing Components 1 season. For Hamilton, it was a second straight season with no Grand Prix victory to his title.
It’s a huge reversal in fortunes from the highs after 2014 the place Hamilton received the Driver’s Championship in six of seven years. It went alongside his earlier world title with McLaren. Hamilton’s success introduced laurels to Silver Arrows as nicely with the Silverston-based group profitable eight championships in a row.
Nonetheless, issues have circled dramatically for Hamilton and Mercedes. After being dethroned by Max Verstappen in a tightly contested 2021 season, Hamilton has dropped down the problem whereas the Dutch driver has collected wins with ease.
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Having made his debut in 2007, Hamilton had not gone a season with out profitable a race till 2022. Now, he faces inside questions over his skills to remain aggressive.
“Finally,” Hamilton instructed BBC Sport, “when you’ve got troublesome seasons like this, there are all the time going to be moments if you’re like: ‘Is it me, or is it the automotive? Do you continue to have it? Has it gone?’
“Since you’re lacking that, … when the magic occurs, when every little thing comes collectively, the automotive and also you, and that spark, it’s extraordinary. And that’s what you’re within the seek for,” he added.
“I’m solely human,” says the 38-year-old. “If anybody on the earth tells you they don’t have these issues, they’re in denial. We’re all human beings.”
Regardless of the dearth of wins, Hamilton ended the 2023 season in third place behind the Crimson Bull Racing pair of Verstappen and Sergio Perez. Teammate George Russell completed in eighth place.
Hamilton admitted that it could be a troublesome season the second he drove this 12 months’s automotive again in February.
“I bear in mind it feeling precisely the identical,” he says as he compares it to final 12 months. “And that positively was not an ideal feeling. I actually had excessive hopes.”
“In February, once we do a obtain of the place the automotive goes, I used to be a little bit extra apprehensive, as a result of the earlier 12 months it was like: ‘The automotive is wonderful, it’s distinctive, no-one’s going to have something prefer it.’ After which we get to the primary check…
“So, I used to be a little bit bit extra cautious once I was listening, and I used to be like: ‘We are going to see.’ After which the automotive had all these issues. I simply knew it was going to be a protracted 12 months.”
Trying again, he says the adjustments that had been required and requested for, weren’t made. To compound the frustration, there was no readability over what was the difficulty and the right way to repair it.
Verstappen completed the season on 575 factors, a large 290 factors forward of second-place Perez. He received 19 of twenty-two races within the season whereas ending on the rostrum in 21 of them. Hamilton acknowledged that the Dutch driver barely needed to break sweat by the season.
“You possibly can undergo the lap occasions and among the information from Max; he’s simply chilling on the entrance most of the time,” Hamilton says. “I don’t assume he has damaged a sweat in the course of the 12 months.
“Even once we had been chasing him in Austin, I don’t assume he was sweating. I feel he was simply in a position to management it. And if you find yourself in that place the place you’ve got efficiency and might again off, the automotive goes additional. The tyres go longer and you might be in a candy spot and it’s wonderful to be in that place.
“Finally, they’ve achieved an incredible job and labored and deserve it.”
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