After the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix Lewis Hamilton has been criticized by insiders and not. The English driver ran a race with no particular flickers, finishing in thirteenth position and lapped by one lap, while his teammate Russell he obtained a valid fourth place with full laps. It is precisely the confrontation with the young teammate, fourth in the drivers’ championship with an advantage of twenty-one points from Lewis, that triggers a discussion on the validity of the seven-time world champion’s performance in this troubled start to the season for Mercedes.
Nothing new will be said. In life, as in Formula 1, it takes a moment to go from stars to stalls, and what has been shown to be good until a few months earlier does not stand up to the pressure of the present. Beyond the final result under the checkered flag, Was Hamilton’s bad race on the Santerno circuit dictated by particular circumstances or by his low performance? As always, it depends on your point of view. So let’s try to propose two of them, that of a hypothetical “accusation” and that of an equally hypothetical “defense”. We leave the final judgment to you readers.
The Prosecution
In numbers they speak for themselves. At no stage of the long weekend of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was Lewis Hamilton able to overtake his teammate. Russell in fact preceded him both in free practice and in qualifying and at the end of the sprint race, as well as under the checkered flag on Sunday. If we then go back to the ranking of the “useless” free practice sessions on Saturday morning (those preceding the Sprint Race whose starting order has already been decided at that point) we find Russell at the top of the list of times, with Hamilton fourth in the middle. second from his teammate and with the same compound. Of course it was a complicated race weekend unstable weather conditions but it should be precisely these conditions that favor an expert multiple world champion (who in the past in the rain has competed in excellent races and qualifications) compared to a Russell who is only three years old. of F1 behind him and that in the rain in the past in Imola he beat his Williams twice. In the race, Hamilton’s attitude was too compliantfailing to make any overtaking, trying only in the last part of the race to attack repeatedly Gasly but in a very shy way and always in the same spot on the track. Maybe they are coming out of the limits of Hamilton unaccustomed for years in hand-to-hand combat on the track. Moreover, even in 2021 Lewis was sometimes accused of being too compliant towards Verstappen, especially in the attacks on the first corner brought to him by the Dutch driver (Silverstone aside). A submissiveness dictated by the desire to stay away from trouble and a “zero points” stage, which perhaps cost him the championship in hindsight.
Returning to Imola, if it is clear that Hamilton does not have the magic wand to suddenly transform his Mercedes W13 into a competitive car it certainly cannot be said that out of the car Lewis behaved like a leader which, as they say, “takes the team on your shoulders”. The heated discussion in the garage between Hamilton, with the helmet still on his head, and Toto Wolff during the unfortunate qualifications on Friday it was filmed by photographers and televisions and we could not expect anything else given the protagonists. An episode that did not help to relax the climate. A discussion that could very well have been done behind closed doors more calmly. Of course it is not certain that the two were really arguing, but that the air was sad in the garage of driver number 44, it is also understood by the resigned statements of Hamilton at the end of the race who once more said that they will continue to work hard but that the situation is what it is. An act of realism undoubtedly, but from a seven-time world champion you would expect a little more conviction in communication, even non-verbal and a little more ability to motivate your team in front of the microphones despite the difficulties. What the other heptachampion of the world, in the century Michael Schumacherhe was much better.
The defence
Judging Lewis Hamilton’s Imola race on the basis of practice, sprint race and race rankings alone is a rather superficial exercise. There were many variables that influenced his weekend and all for the worse.
Qualifying on Friday was martyred by rain and red flags that did not allow the late drivers, including Hamilton and Russell himself, to have the opportunity to improve their time. There Sprint Race did not change much the result of the qualification and both Mercedes drivers were running more or less on the same pace.
In the race Hamilton was penalized by one bad starta but it is one fate that befell all those who started from equal positions, Leclerc in the first place, because that side of the wet track was definitely without grip. Russell, on the other hand, started from eleventh position and therefore from one side of the track which allowed him a much better shot than Hamilton who, on the other hand, immediately found himself bottled up behind much slower cars. Russell also got off to a good start, immediately gaining two positions, but it was also thanks to the triple collision between Ricciardo Sainz and Bottas that he was able to gain sixth position without too much effort. Hamilton was further unlucky during his pit stop having lost precious seconds in the pit lane also due to an obstruction by Or with then penalized for unsafe release. His Mercedes was certainly not the fastest on the straight and also continues to lack downforce compared to its competitors due to the unresolved problem of porpoising and risking overtaking with slick tires going on the wet part of the track with a car that does not transmit the necessary confidence would have been of little use. It will be said that Russell took home at least overtaking Magnussenbut in one phase of the race the Haas driver was running on finished intermediate tires and the difficulty evident with which he obtained it (with a first failed attempt in which he took a great risk) is a further sign of the Mercedes’ poor grip on the Imola track on Sunday. Russell then inherited the fourth position after Leclerc’s error at the high variant and his only dangerous antagonist in the final phase of the race was Bottas, in turn taken out of the way by a very long pit stop by Alfa Romeo. In short, Russell is certainly a talent and a potential champion of the future, but on Sunday he was on the other side of the fortune table compared to Hamilton compared to his teammate.
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