Hamilton and Mercedes spent 2022 chasing Red Bull

Instead, bogged down by porpoising throughout the early stages of the 2022 campaign, the seven-time F1 world champion found himself well behind the pace of Red Bull.

In the Mercedes W13, it seemed like one issue would lead to another, with the biggest surprise being that Hamilton could still claw some points from behind the rickety wheel. His frustrations turned to optimism, however, with the team working diligently to fix the most glaring issues and then commence prep for the season to come.

With the 2022 season in the books, Hamilton is in the final year of his current contract with Mercedes, but instead of looking to go out with a bang, he’s already being haunted by the last two unfortunate campaigns. It turns out that his potential record eighth world title was won by Red Bull while they broke the F1 budget cap.

Still, in the second half of 2022, Hamilton not only proved that he could compete with a weaker car, but that the car improved so quickly that either Mercedes racer could podium in ten of the last 14 races. Now, with an even greater desire to avenge the last two seasons, somewhat surprisingly, Hamilton has closed in on pace setter Max Verstappen.

A third-place finish in Bahrain proved to give Mercedes false hope moving forward. For the next seven races, through to Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, Hamilton’s peak would be fourth place on two occasions, averaging a seventh-place finish from the second to the seventh race of the 2022 season. From Canada onwards, his fortunes and the performance of the W13 ascended.

Andrew Shovlin, director of trackside engineering for Mercedes, spoke of their journey to improvements on the team’s YouTube channel, saying that the package delivered for the Spanish Grand Prix marked their biggest step towards fixing the W13’s “aero bouncing phenomenon” to get “pretty good performance.” From Spain, it took three more races for Hamilton to return to the podium, finishing third in Canada.

As the season wound down, many were putting 2022 down as a trial by fire for the W13 and a team so accustomed to tweaking a winning car. Even in the final race in Abu Dhabi, the latest Silver Arrow was best described as inconsistent. While Hamilton couldn’t quite wrangle the car to a race win, his teammate did, showing the potential of the car at the São Paulo Grand Prix on 13 November.

Now, with the season in the books and the end-of-season sale on at the Formula One Store for racing merchandise, Hamilton can relax after a trying season, and Toto Wolff’s team can go all-in on getting Mercedes ready to compete in 2023.

By all accounts, the improvements shown towards the end of the 2022 campaign and the noise coming from the Mercedes garage have experts leaning towards a Hamilton resurgence.

Hamilton’s record in the sport will forever have him cemented as a legend and one of the all-time greats. Once he retires, he’ll be talked about in the same conversations as the likes of Michael Schumacher and his hero, Ayrton Senna.

He’s even been congratulated by Pelé for being given an honorary citizenship in Brazil. Simply put: he doesn’t need to win another Drivers’ World Championship.

As shown this season, though, Hamilton still has that drive and incredible competitiveness that can mould a championship-winning season. The experts are already seeing him as a close contender to Verstappen in 2023, with the racing markets at Betway Sports setting Hamilton as the 3.75 second-favorite in the odds to the 1.80 Verstappen.

It’s a fine margin, especially with Mercedes greatly expected to close the gap on Red Bull. The former champions are in at 2.37 to win the Constructors’ World Championship, with Red Bull very much in the team’s sights at 2.00. What this tells us is that Mercedes is already looking to be much more competitive next season, even to the extent of leapfrogging a revamped Ferrari team.

It took Red Bull the better part of a decade to catch up and surpass Mercedes to end the team’s reign of dominance in F1, so a turnover of three years even with Hamilton at the front of the grid would be quite some achievement. Having the British star is key, though, and many are backing him to mount a hefty challenge in 2023.