Lewis Hamilton is used to winning awards and breaking records, but 2022 has been a year full of unwanted records and failures for the 37-year-old, as Mercedes struggled to tackle the major regulation changes that came at the start of the season.
The Brit has now officially completed the first winless season of his illustrious Formula 1 career, after only managing a streak of P2 finishes towards the end of the season.
Hamilton is also now in the running to be crowned the biggest disappointment of the season in the ‘Express end of season awards’, alongside Daniel Ricciardo and Mick Schumacher.
The seven-time world champion finished in sixth place in the drivers’ championship, and bowed out of the 2022 season with his second retirement of the season at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
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Hamilton was beaten by his teammate over the course of the season, as George Russell finished fourth in the drivers’ championship and even managed to pick up the first win of his career in Brazil.
Russell is a candidate to win the driver of the year award in the same ceremony, as he battles in a public vote with Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen.
Verstappen will be the frontrunner for the award as he broke record after record in a stunning season which saw him secure 15 race victories, smashing the previous record of 13 held by Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel.
Mercedes did not help Hamilton in his pursuit of his eighth Formula 1 title, as the team struggled to get to grips with the regulation changes that came alongside the start of the new season, in particular battling with porpoising at the beginning of the year.
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The bouncing issue saw the team lose ground in the car development race to Red Bull and Mercedes, meaning that only after major upgrades brought by the team to the Austin Grand Prix were their drivers truly capable for battling for race wins.
The team have said that they are fully aware of where they went wrong this season, putting their 2022 woes down to getting the physics wrong surrounding the new car design.
Mercedes have also suggested that they are confident that they know how to make up the lap time that they lacked this season, as they look to take advantage of their testing time advantage over Ferrari and especially Red Bull next season.