A P9 and a P14 at Singapore, possibly a result of a wrong bet in strategy just encapsulates Mercedes’ season so far. 

With their star driver, Lewis Hamilton, faltering the whole season and their #2 being the closest to a positive, 2022 has largely been a failure for Mercedes.

Singapore is a tricky place to drive at and by extension a tricky place to strategize for. To make matters worse, the event was delayed due to torrential pouring, leaving the track wet.

Both drivers had issues with warm-up and grip. Russell had to start from the pits which made his tire selection a relatively easier job. But it was the tire strategy for his partner that made the news.

Lewis was seen frustrated on the team radio, arguing, “I told you about these tires, in future you need to listen to me. No grip.” The message was about him being sent out on the intermediates.

On The Ringer F1 Show, this was discussed, “The thing with Lewis is, when things are going wrong they can kind of crescendo… this has happened quite a lot, where he argues with the team. I don’t think there’s any ill feeling with the team but when they have obviously had a decision on what should we do – this one was between new inters and old inters.”

“When we see Lewis Hamilton do that, we almost get the sense he then doesn’t want to do well because if he does well, it proves that he was wrong… so we kind of get this crescendo,” was the opinion on the show.

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And things did go that way. His overeagerness led him into the barriers requiring a front wing change, and thus a fall behind from P4 which he never recovered back to.

Mercedes are having off-track issues too with Lewis Hamilton

Singapore was not the only bad performance from Lewis this season. It has been a slew of performances like Sunday night. But it’s not just this; Mercedes are starting to have to deal with problems off the tracks too.

Lewis has had issues with the FIA regarding his body piercings from early on in the season. His jewelry was brought into contention again after Singapore as Mercedes were penalized.

Mercedes had incorrectly filled out a scrutineering form and declared that Lewis will not be wearing his nose ring in the race. However, Lewis did wear his nose ring and the team was fined €25,000 ($24,500) for it.

Lewis said, “I went back and had to have the blood blister fixed, because there was pus and blood. I put this back in and in the last two weeks it’s started to heal and they’ve [his doctors] asked that I keep it in.”

“It’s crazy that we’re having to talk about something so small. I take everything else out. At this point, I don’t really care to be honest. It’s all a bit silly. Hopefully they’ll be sensible. The stewards should be there to keep us safe most importantly but this is not a safety issue,” Lewis said.

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While things do not improve substantially for Lewis and Mercedes, issues like these will continue to hog the limelight. A turnaround is essential for the Briton’s confidence as well as for Mercedes to turn up as challengers next season.