How long can Lewis take this?
Mercedes struggles pushing him to brink
LEWIS HAMILTON’S face appears at St Kilda Beach, above the sand on Melbourne’s most famous shore. Displayed in a bus shelter, the former world champion is photographed alongside the Dutchman who deposed him, Max Verstappen.
‘Every good story has a sequel,’ reads the advertisement for this morning’s Australian Grand Prix.
The only problem for Hamilton is that the claim has turned out to be untrue. As if more evidence that Mercedes are struggling were needed, it came in qualifying here yesterday when the Briton was nearly a second off Ferrari’s pole-sitter Charles Leclerc.
In another graphic reminder of his predicament, Hamilton’s head rocked back and forth, up and down, as his machine bounced along the redesigned Albert Park track like a kangaroo. ‘Porpoising’ is the name given to the unwelcome and slowing sensation.
How long can Hamilton tolerate thin pickings after his years of serial success? The question is heightened because he is 37, the second oldest driver behind Fernando Alonso, the 40-year-old Spaniard who cannot quit.
Hamilton’s recent mood has mostly been calm, at times Zen-like. At other moments, he has betrayed twinges of annoyance and only this week told his 27.5million Instagram devotees: ‘I have struggled mentally and emotionally for a long time. To keep going is a constant effort, but we have to keep fighting.’
Do those pained words indicate that, having finished a fortuitous third in Bahrain and a disappointing 10th in Saudi Arabia, he might not even see out his £40million-a-year contract which expires at the end of next season? Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, believes not. ‘You can only walk away if you don’t any more like what you do,’ said the Austrian. ‘He loves doing this. And isn’t it a great challenge for him? He was at McLaren, he went to Mercedes when they weren’t great and he won six titles; the team have got it wrong now and he can be part of the rise again.
‘Alonso wants to go on for another three years. Today, athletes look after themselves much better. There’s more nutritional and medical help at hand. He is in fantastic shape. His lifestyle is hugely disciplined and he has many, many years to go. In Britain, a couple means two, but where I come from it means a few and there are a few more years ahead.’
Will his gifts dim, regardless of sports science? Would he accept leaving the stage as a quitter? How long will his extraordinary and relentless zeal persist?
Wolff said: ‘I see an upbeat Lewis when we start the day, then a downbeat Lewis, in the same way I oscillate, when the session has gone worse than expected. This needs to be a blip and not a long-term downward spiral and it will be a blip. That is why we need to get it right now, not on the stopwatch, but mentally. I don’t sleep and that is not because of jet lag. I am not sleeping because I am beating myself up about how to get on top of these things.’ An interesting observation came a few years ago from Nico Rosberg, Hamilton’s boyhood pal and the man who beat him to the title in 2016 before retiring aged 31.
I asked Rosberg how his new life out away from competition suited him. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But Lewis won’t find it is easy to stop.’