Has the era of Hamilton dominance come to an end?
Thursday, 23 February 2023
Was Lewis Hamilton's barren 2022 a one-off or a sign of things to come?
Lewis Hamilton has never known misery like this, numerically at least. Sound overly-dramatic? Perhaps … but for a driver who thrust himself into a Formula 1® spotlight he's barely receded from since his debut in Australia in 2007, last season's stats make for sobering reading.
For the first time in 16 seasons, Hamilton failed to win a single race; for context, the seven-time world champion averaged 10 wins per season from 2014-21. In 2022, Hamilton led for just 46 laps (he'd led more than 100 in every other season bar one), finished a career-worst sixth in the drivers' championship, and is currently on his longest run of races (23) without a victory.
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For all that, the 38-year-old's 2022 campaign can best be summed up in one image, not a slew of statistics; Hamilton gingerly extracting himself from his Mercedes in physical discomfort after manhandling his porpoising W13 to fourth place in Azerbaijan – 71 seconds adrift of runaway race-winner Max Verstappen – spoke louder than any post-race soundbite, let alone any post-season study of the record books.
At this stage of his career, Hamilton doesn't need the fame, money, accolades or adulation. He doesn't need the aggravation, either. Which begs the question: does the competitiveness of this year's Mercedes W14 – rather than the date on his birth certificate – determine how long he keeps going?
While we're not suggesting Hamilton's career is approaching its final laps – he's under contract until the end of 2023 and rumours of a two-year extension have swirled in recent times – the three-time Australian Grand Prix winner won't want another season like 2023.
Last year was a chance to reverse-engineer a recalcitrant car to make it occasionally competitive, and achieve small wins when pursuing the prize he really wanted was impossible. But what if that continues? Then – rightly or wrongly – the ticking clock will start to become a talking point.
Hamilton's place in the GOAT (Greatest Of All-Time) conversation is assured, but it's instructive to compare Mercedes' main man at 38 to megastar athletes of his generation in other international sports.
Golfing goliath Tiger Woods turned 38 in 2013; the American won the 2019 Masters at age 43, but that was one of just three tournament wins in that timeframe, a period paused by multiple back surgeries. Tennis kingpin Roger Federer reached 38 in 2019, advanced to a Wimbledon final that same year, and laboured through injury before retiring in September 2022. Gridiron great Tom Brady (referenced specifically by Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff at the team's 2023 launch) hit 38 in 2015, after which he won three of his seven Super Bowls and a league MVP in 2017 before retiring in February 2023, aged 45.
What about motorsport equivalents, on two wheels and four? Valentino Rossi turned 38 in February 2017 and took just one of his 76 MotoGP victories afterwards, retiring at the end of 2021. Michael Schumacher was 38 in January 2007, months after departing Ferrari, and had just one podium in three years when he returned with Mercedes from 2010-12.
Besides Brady, a GOAT candidate who has thrived after 38 is basketball star LeBron James, who hit that age marker last December. In February 2023, James broke an all-time NBA career scoring record that had stood since 1984, won a championship as recently as 2020, and is averaging more than 30 points per game – his most since 2008 – in his 20th season.
As Brady proved and James is proving, age can really just be a number to ignore. Like James, Hamilton is still respected by friends and feared by foes alike, while his appetite for a fight – think of the final stages of the 2021 championship, where he won three of the final four races to be in the box seat to win the title until Abu Dhabi happened – indicates the competitive fire still rages.
How do Hamilton's peers see his 2022 season, and what might be next? It was telling to hear Charles Leclerc's take at Ferrari's season launch.
"Lewis will be there," Leclerc emphatically said.
"Lewis will never be out of the question for a championship fight. We must not forget what he's achieved in the sport.
"He still has it."
Only time will tell if Hamilton's 2022 results are the starting point of a decline that every uber-successful athlete eventually endures, or a blip on the road to more rostrums and race wins. If the Mercedes W14 banishes the bad memories of its predecessor from Bahrain onwards, we'll soon have our answer.
