Lewis Hamilton’s priorities have been called out after a disappointing start to Mercedes’ season.
Lewis Hamilton has been questioned ahead of the Australian Grand Prix. (Image: Getty)
Ex-Formula One driver Mark Blundell is the latest figure within motorsport to question Lewis Hamilton’s mentality, wondering whether the Brit has the “appetite” and “vigour” to compete with Max Verstappen. Hamilton has finished seventh and ninth in the first two races of the season and is already 43 points behind his Red Bull counterpart.
Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard have already raised their suspicions about Hamilton’s motivation for his last season with the Silver Arrows. He has been dismayed with the W15 in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, pleading for Mercedes to make key changes before this week’s Australian Grand Prix.
And now Blundell, who spent four years in F1 including one with McLaren in the 1990s, asked whether Hamilton has the ambition to challenge his younger rivals at the top of the grid. Knowing that he is in an inferior vehicle to Verstappen, Blundell wonders whether the Brit has the necessary fight to get back to competing for titles.
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“I think it’s going to be just down to whether he’s still got the appetite,” Blundell told AceOdds. “He’s now near his forties, does he get up every morning with that vigour? And does he get up with that sort of determination to go and deliver? And as I say to you, it’s not just about on track, it’s also off track.
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Lewis Hamilton is set to leave Mercedes for Ferrari in 2025. (Image: Getty)
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“There’s a huge amount of work behind the scenes that people probably don’t get to see that often. A lot of that is motivating, that: ‘Can I get to Maranello, and can I actually inspire everybody to be pulling towards where we all want to go?’ That’s putting in the extra hours and making sure that we’ve got the evolution in the car to take it to the next step.
“And then for me to go and cap it all off on Sunday afternoon and drive a Grand Prix and deliver in my performance. That’s a gruelling, tough job. Yeah, I’m saying it’s a gruelling, tough job with somebody who’s getting paid tens of millions of dollars, but it is what it is. It’s still got to be delivered upon him. Those guys are at that level. It’s much more than just driving a Grand Prix car.”
Mark Blundell has been the latest F1 figure to question Lewis Hamilton. (Image: Getty)
Blundell has questioned that at the age of 39, Hamilton might be less inclined to push himself to the absolute maximum. The Mercedes driver would vehemently disagree but Blundell claims that as a driver enters the twilight of their career, chances increase of their focus drifting elsewhere.
He added: “Let’s be realistic, how old is he now? Although he’s still as fit as a fiddle and gets the job done, life changes, and responsibilities are there.
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“You start questioning the decision to do that first turn at 150 miles an hour next to a Max Verstappen – is it actually worthwhile anymore?
“I’m not saying that that’s coming into his head at the moment, but these are things that happen as you get a little bit older.
“I’m sure at some point that might be the case, there’s there’s also other angles in terms of where he goes in his future, and I think he’s going to be in a Formula One car for the next couple of years, but equally there’s a lot of life ahead of him that he’ll want to fulfil.”
