Ex-Ferrari and Williams team manager Peter Windsor has quashed suggestions that Lewis Hamilton is making more mistakes, since Mercedes’ dominant period ended.
Since the start of the new aerodynamic regulations in 2022, Red Bull have very much been the superior team, whereas Mercedes have been comfortably slower.
Hamilton’s cars in 2022 and 2023 and arguably the worst he’s ever driven in Formula 1, with Windsor believing that the 38-year-old is doing “incredibly well” given his current machinery.
Windsor was speaking via his YouTube livestream when he was asked whether Hamilton is struggling since Mercedes went backwards, something he believes isn’t happening.
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The F1 analyst simply believes reigning World Champion Max Verstappen has “set a new standard”, with everything going in the Dutchman’s favour currently.
“It’s not so much a slower car, I think it’s more that Lewis hasn’t spent much of his Formula 1 career racing in the midfield because he’s always been in a pretty competitive car week in, week out, race in, race out,” Windsor said.
“What a shock from where he was at the back end of ’21 to where he then was in ’22 and he was racing with the Kevin Magnussens and Alex Albons and Yuki Tsunodas and doing a pretty good job.
“I’ve always said I’m astonished at how good a job he’s doing bearing in mind how much road dust he’s got on him going back to 2007, for Pete’s sake.
“If anybody was going to find it a tough ask it was going to be Lewis, but I think he’s actually handled it incredibly well, driven well.
“Has he made more mistakes on his own in a slower car? I don’t think he has, has he? He had a spin in the wet [in qualifying at Silverstone] but recovered very well.
“I wouldn’t have said he’s making more errors. He made a few errors on Fridays even when he was in a quick car, often hit things, a bit like Charles [Leclerc].
“Max does set a new standard but, then again, Max is in this incredible situation where he’s got such a good team around him – good car, people that he loves, they love him, everything’s harmonious, no team-mate to worry about.
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“It’s just like [watching] this great racing driver become even greater because he’s got everything perfectly around him anyway.
“All credit to him – it’s not detracting from him in any way – whereas Lewis has had ups and downs: [Fernando] Alonso at McLaren and then Nico [Rosberg], he wanted to keep Valtteri [Bottas] and then Abu Dhabi ’21, ’22.
“It’s been a bit more fractious.”