After eight years of consecutive seasons winning races, the 2022 season will go down as the first winless in Formula 1 for Lewis Hamilton. Mercedes had to grapple with their difficult W13 car at the beginning of the year, when the regulation change came into effect which forced more emphasis on ground-effect aerodynamics. The W13 appeared to suffer most from the porpoising and bouncing effect, which led to them abandoning their initial car concept mid-season , according to team boss Toto Wolff. By this stage the team started to find more pace, getting close to wins in Zandvoort, Austin, and Mexico. This resurgence in pace culminated in a win at the Brazilian Grand Prix, which turned out to be a one-two for the team with George Russell finish ahead of Hamilton.
Hamilton would've had 'more opportunity' without Verstappen crash
One of the many stories of that race was Hamilton's clash with his rival for the 2021 Drivers' Championship, Max Verstappen. The pair collided after the first race restart at Turn 1, causing front wing damage for Verstappen and forcing Hamilton to drop back through the field. Reflecting on the crash, Hamilton believes he would've had "more opportunity" to win, had he not lost the ground at a track that he describes as 'difficult to overtake'. "It definitely was," he says speaking to Channel 4 when asked if he thought his race was finished after the contact with Verstappen. "I think we would have had a lot more opportunities within the two stops that we had, and applying the pressure, it would have been great to have that battle. "It's not the easiest of circuits to to overtake and you usually need to have a bigger [time] delta in terms of pacing the other car. "We were very, very close. There's only a one or two tenths between between us, particularly at any given time. "I would have loved to have had the chance of just pushing, pushing, pushing and seeing if an opportunity arises." Hamilton reveals that both him and Russell opted to go for different wing setups during the race, which exposed their strengths and weaknesses throughout the lap. He added: "We had different wings setups, I was quicker on the straights, and he was quicker through that middle section with the big wing. So it wasn't meant to be."
Most read
