Lewis Hamilton title chances written off “unless something weird happens”
After Hamilton’s hopes of a record-setting eighth championship vanished at the controversial 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, he spent last season battling with his car’s performance and was helpless as Max Verstappen racked up a second consecutive title.
The 2023 season-opening F1 Bahrain Grand Prix is just days away but there is an air of caution, rather than bullishness, around the Mercedes camp.
Kravitz said about Hamilton’s hopes of an all-time record eighth championship: “Is that actually going to happen? Because unless something really weird happens, Lewis is not going to win an eighth championship this year, is he?
“The word at Mercedes is ‘eventually’. Toto said at the launch: ‘We have to have a car capable of challenging for the championship eventually’.
“George Russell said used the word ‘eventually’ twice in one answer!
“Eventually, eventually…
“They are still catching up from being nine, 10, 11 months behind on last year’s car.”
Hamilton went winless for the first time in his career last season, and Russell took Mercedes’ only victory at Interlagos - but Kravitz believes that even that accomplishment was an outlier.
He said: “Red Bull lost all discipline in Brazil. They fought between themselves, they were off the pace, everything went badly, they shouted at each other.
“How quickly things can go right again - Red Bull went to Abu Dhabi and said ‘we are going to dominate again’.
“It is going to take another year for Mercedes, at least.”
Hamilton, now 38, is expected to sign a new deal to stay at Mercedes beyond the expiration of his current contract at the end of this year.
Their preseason testing performance was patchy - the porpoising that blighted the early stages of last season was seemingly gone, but a memorable image lasts of a forlorn Russell stood staring at his broken-down W14.
Red Bull, ominously, set the pace and Mercedes fans are left hoping that Toto Wolff’s team intentionally hid their true performance.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
