After almost a decade of Mercedes dominance, never would have Lewis Hamilton imagined facing a drubbing as harsh as he did last year. The man was going through a purple patch that F1 has arguably never witnessed. However, that changed towards the end of 2021 and worsened in 2022. After going through a season without a race win for the first time in his entire F1 career, the Briton must have wanted to hit the ground running from the very first race in 2023. However, the on-track struggles and result in Bahrain showed that the Silver Arrows had made hardly any progress. Amidst all this, rumors are flying left, right, and center about his willingness to jump ship soon. Mercedes just put those rumors to rest but ended up inviting fans’ ire.

In an attempt to interpret FIA’s new regulations in 2022, many teams sported some unique concepts. Among them was Mercedes who introduced a concept that was widely labeled as “zero pods”. The car lacked pace and struggled with porpoising almost throughout the season. However, the team stuck to its concepts, despite a cautioning from Hamilton. In fact, they continue to sport a similar design theory this year as well.

Fans slam Mercedes as they attempt to play down the Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari rumors

In 2022, not only did Mercedes remain non-competitive for the championships, but also fell down the pecking order behind Ferrari. That trend continued in the 2023 season opener in Bahrain as Carlos Sainz finished ahead of both Lewis and George Russell. To make matters worse, even Aston Martin is quicker than the Silver Arrows now.

This led to some rumors flying around the internet, suggesting that Hamilton was perhaps looking to switch to the Prancing Horse after his contract with Mercedes expires at the end of 2023. This is what prompted the Brackley-based team’s response that quoted the man himself as saying, “I don’t plan on being anywhere else.”

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Take a look at how fans reacted to the post on Twitter.

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As Hamilton recently revealed how his opinion was ignored in last year’s car’s development, fans urged the team to give more importance to his input.

One fan iterated their opinion of following the driver and not the team and made it clear that they would shift their loyalties depending on wherever Lewis will choose to be.

Some fans recalled how Hamilton gave similar statements during his time at McLaren but ended up switching to Mercedes in 2013.

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Team principal Toto Wolff recently talked about making a radical overhaul of the car’s design as the current design theory does not seem to work and is only pulling them further back. It will be interesting to see how long it will take for them to adapt now because time is ticking and the next GP in Jeddah is not too far away.