Mercedes suffered its biggest performance slump since the start of the hybrid era in 2014 at the start of the 2022 season, as they encountered more problems than expected in adapting to the new technical regulations with a car that suffered heavily from porpoising .
The problem left Lewis Hamilton far from the fight for victories, in fact, he was eliminated in Q1 in Saudi Arabia and ran out of points in Imola. Although the German outfit has regained some of its usual performance, the British driver is still winless this season, going 13 races without a win, his worst run in a single campaign.
But Toto Wolff , Mercedes ‘ F1 director, denied rumors that Hamilton ‘s commitment might have faltered or that he was studying options to replace him.
“I haven’t been in contact with any other drivers,” Wolff told Motorsport.com in an interview before arriving for the Formula 1 summer break.
“Lewis and I, even if the entire season hadn’t gone the way we originally hoped, we would have stayed close going into next year.”
“I have not contacted (anyone) actively or reactively to see if he could drive for us in the future,” he added.
Hamilton signed a new two-year deal with Mercedes in 2021, tying him to the team until the end of next season alongside young teammate George Russell.
The seven-time world champion spoke about the efforts being made at Brackley to go deeper and get Mercedes back into the fight for the top positions, saying the complications they are going through have been a “valuable lesson”.
Wolff explained that Hamilton went through a period of “accepting this as the new reality” in the early part of the year, when the severity of the W13’s problems became apparent.
“It’s not a great experience, but after the first few races, it was something special,” said Wolff.
“It focused solely on how we could get this car back to the front of the grid.”
“And even when I wasn’t at my best, he was the most positive person here, cheering everyone on, even though it was an ordeal to drive this car.”
Hamilton was given the difficult task of running experimental setups on his car during several practice sessions early in the season in an attempt to understand the problems of the W13 .
The director of Mercedes considered that it was “important to look for extreme solutions” to try to solve the problems while they got used to a new and strange situation.
“In December we were fighting for the championship in the last race of the year, and four months later we had a car that couldn’t fight for the title.
“So everyone has to take notice and say, ‘Okay, this is the reality we have right now, what do we do about it?'” Toto Wolff concluded.
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