Einstein’s definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
Lewis Hamilton is two years into the longest winless drought of his long and extraordinary Formula 1 career. Yet, he has signed up for two more seasons with a Mercedes team which looks a mere shadow of the all-conquering behemoth it was just a few years ago.
To be clear – I don’t believe Hamilton is insane. But I do find it very interesting that the seven-time world champion tied himself down to more than just an extra year with his current team when time is running out for him to win an eighth.
Mercedes’ eight-year winning streak in the constructors’ championship was extraordinary. We may never see anything like it again – but there’s also a chance that Red Bull are already on their way to beating it.
The sport is in their tight clutch right now. In 2023 they went back-to-back and did it in such dominant style that they have to be the favourites to continue to win every year until at least the next major rule changes in 2026, when new engines and a few other tweaks come into play.
It remains to be seen whether Hamilton will still be around by that point. He turns 39 in a couple of weeks and the two-year contract extension he signed earlier this years means he will continue to race in F1 and for Mercedes until he is almost 41. Fernando Alonso is proving it is possible to still be competitive beyond that, but it will depend on whether the Brit’s body and mind remain up to the task.
That makes the next two years all the more crucial. It may be his last opportunity to finally secure that elusive eighth title, but he faces a tall order to even have the chance to compete for it with a Mercedes team which has lost its way. His last two cars have been incapable of matching the machines that Red Bull have produced.
“Mercedes quite clearly are not the force they were, because they didn’t get the 2022 car right and they didn’t fix it for 2023,” said Martin Brundle at the end of the season. The Sky Sports favourite also pointed out that the dream team of Toto Wolff and his top lieutenants who oversaw that extraordinary era is breaking up – having endured these two disappointing seasons.
As Wolff himself said in 2022, he and his colleagues “didn’t suddenly take a stupid pill”. Some of the best minds in the F1 paddock wear shirts with Mercedes logos on the breast. But they have made mistakes. And, given Wolff’s admission that the team is basically starting from scratch for the 2024 W15 car, they are two years behind Red Bull as a result.
The driver market is set up to come alive in 2024 with half the grid out of contract. Signing an extra 12 months with Mercedes made sense but it’s hard to understand why Hamilton put his loyalty to the team he loves ahead of his title ambitions by agreeing to two more years.
He is not the sort of man who has many regrets, in F1 or in life. If he is still only seven-time world champion by the time he retires from racing, Hamilton may look back on that decision as one of them.
