Lewis Hamilton may still consider the Abu Dhabi 2021 finale as one of his worst experiences. Though what 2022 served him was certainly inexplicable. The Mercedes W13 was a horrific car to drive. As a result, the 7-time champion may have experienced arguably the worst season of his career. But the major issue was due to incessant troubles Lewis had with the “bouncing” of the car.

Hamilton recalled his experiences of the early season struggles and the turning points of performance for the Mercedes car, as the year comes to an end. In an interview on the official Mercedes-AMG F1 website, he stated, “The first big step was Barcelona, that was our first hint of there being more potential in the car.”

“It turned out to be a bit of a false positive; the car was good there but then the races afterwards were difficult. It was like a ghost was in the car and it kept coming back.”

Lewis’s description of the car’s struggles in the initial half of the season surely reflects how badly he struggled with the porpoising. The 37-year-old had a lot of experimental setups and the car bounced on the straights incessantly.

It was a terrible experience for Hamilton’s back and spine, too. The Mercedes driver was aching in pain after he finished the race in Baku. This was when the W13 probably showed the worst of the porpoising effect. Lewis surely had spine-chilling experiences calling out the struggles as “ghosts” of the car.

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Hamilton hopes he can find solutions to eradicate these issues of the W13 completely with the Silver Arrows. It will be a steep mountain to climb, but the Brackley outfit has got the ability to do it.

Is there a Silver Lining for Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes for Next Year?

Besides recalling the struggles, Hamilton also singled out some races when the car worked pretty well. Apparently, the Mercedes’ zero side pod concept may be unique but not outlandish to not work. Silverstone, France, and Austin were some decent showings of the W13 that helped the Silver Arrows with some good morale-boosting results.

Although can they build on the promise shown in these races next season? Toto Wolff is confident that their understanding of the car concept has improved significantly. Thus, he believes that the insights from these good 2022 performances will help Mercedes make a step forward in terms of performance.

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Lewis too will want to support the team in finding every tenth of a second in terms of performance. As long as they keep persisting like they did this year, their return to the top is certainly possible. But Hamilton will still want to ensure with the team that they focus to remove all those ghosts of the bouncing first.

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The 2nd half of the season was a strong and optimistic conclusion for Mercedes to this season. If they can build on their positives efficiently, the W14 might make the difference come Bahrain 2023. What do you think? Were the good performances this year a sign of things to come in the near future for the Silver Arrows?