‘Eating him up inside’ - Lewis Hamilton’s ‘suffering’ from winless F1 run pinpointed

Lewis Hamilton was “suffering” during his lengthy streak without an F1 victory, a period of time which was “eating him up inside”, it has been claimed.

The seven-time world champion ended a 945-day wait to claim his first victory since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix with a fairytale win at the British Grand Prix two weeks ago.

Sky Sports F1 pundit Naomi Schiff believes Hamilton found his victory drought - and fallout from his controversial title loss to Max Verstappen in Abu Dhabi 2021 - harder than "we maybe even realised”.

"I think what caused that huge impact was the outpouring of emotion that we saw from Lewis. Obviously since what happened in Abu Dhabi 2021. 945 days since his last grand prix win,” Schiff said on Sky Sports.

"I don’t think we maybe even realised how much he was suffering from that. I think we all assumed, we thought we could understand, but I think that raw emotion that we saw from him just showed how much it was eating him up inside, to not be able to come back and have revenge with a car that he could fight with.

"When you hear someone who is a seven, eight, whatever you want to call it, time champion doubting themselves and their ability, you know that moment has had a massive impact on his confidence, on his thoughts of his own ability.

“He’s questioned himself. It’s sad to hear that’s the case but it just shows no one is bulletproof. We know how much that meant for everybody. It was great to have him that moment back.”

Schiff added: “It did feel like there was something in the air after Austria already. George won there. You could feel something in Lewis was a little bit off.

“He was so desperate to get that back. It all just came together beautifully. You could see his excellence and experience coming out in his decision-making along the way."

After claiming a record ninth win at Silverstone, Hamilton admitted he had begun to doubt whether he would ever win again.

"He hadn’t won for a long time,” fellow Sky pundit Anthony Davidson said. “He had seen his teammate win in that time as well, since 2021. It wasn’t Lewis that got the victory in Sao Paulo, it was George. And he’s been out-qualified comprehensively by Russell this season.

“He’s getting older as an athlete. I’ve been there myself. It got to the point where I retired because of it at the age of 42 because it felt like it was all becoming a bit difficult. Damon Hill described it beautifully, it’s like a tube of toothpaste. It’s still in there but it gets to the end, but you have to squeeze a bit harder. I thought it was the perfect analogy.

"Therefore it cast that element of doubt - I’m not winning anymore, my teammate is beating me, have I still got it? He openly admitted it. I like that vulnerability. The crowd wanted it, the team wanted it, he wanted it, his parents were there, it was just an explosion. You couldn’t write it. It was absolutely brilliant stuff.”