Just as shortly because the door opened at Zandvoort for Lewis Hamilton to clinch his first win of the season – and lengthen his year-on-year Grand Prix victory document – a Max Verstappen surge on fast softs slammed it shut. Now with seven races to go, Hamilton will already be seeking to Singapore in three weeks’ time regardless of his arrival in Italy this weekend.
The seven-time world champion will take an engine penalty, demoting a Mercedes excruciatingly brief on uncooked velocity in 2022 to the again of the grid on the quickest circuit on the calendar right here at Monza.
In a futile season the place the Silver Arrows’ hybrid domination has been rendered a factor of the previous, Hamilton’s 16-year document of successful at the least one race in each season he’s competed in F1 has been pigeonholed as one thing to attempt for within the closing months. By his followers that’s, not the person himself.
“I don’t care about records,” he stated in Thursday’s press convention.
“For me it’s about winning another World Championship. The feeling of winning it is so unique and special. But of course the idea that no driver in history has gone past seven, you want to try to accomplish that.
“I really feel more healthy than I’ve ever felt – I focus quite a bit on that. I’m feeling match, I like what I’m doing and I don’t plan on stopping any time quickly.”
That final line has further wieght, amid reviews that Mercedes are contemplating giving a reserve contract to Daniel Ricciardo subsequent 12 months as a back-up for 2024 in case Hamilton opts to not lengthen his deal past 2023.
Sat alongside the final 12 months’s winner at Monza Ricciardo, who was dropped by McLaren two weeks in the past and is looking out up and down the paddock for a drive subsequent 12 months, 37-year-old Hamilton turned his head sideways and acknowledged: “I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. Sorry buddy!
“I will always be with Mercedes until the day I die and I feel like I can race for quite a bit longer.”
Irrespective of Hamilton’s demotion this weekend and future past, there’s no doubting the place all the main focus lies this weekend, on the centenary of the Autodromo Nazionale Monza and 75th anniversary of Ferrari. Indeed, sporting vibrant yellow t-shirts throughout their media duties, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz are all too conscious of the importance of the Italian Grand Prix to the Scuderia and its followers.
Expectations although, with a 109 and 135-point deficit within the Drivers and Constructors’ Standings respectively, are tempered on the ‘Temple of Speed’ amid Red Bull’s 2022 domination.
“I expect it to be a bit of a difficult weekend,” Leclerc stated. “We expect Red Bull to be stronger. The track doesn’t suit our car.
“We seem to be a bit quicker in the corners but on tracks like here it is not enough to gain back the advantage on the straights. I think that will be the case this weekend.”
Verstappen is on a four-race winning streak after his home triumph in the Netherlands last week but comes to a track which has been an outlier for the mega-talented 24-year-old. Seven starts, zero podiums.
“The last few years, we have never been quick on the straights so when you come here, some tracks you can get away with it by trying to run a little lower downforce,” stated Verstappen, who retired final 12 months after an notorious collision with Hamilton.
“But then right here everybody runs low downforce and you then can not conceal that any extra. But this 12 months we now have been the alternative, we now have been actually fast on the straight and I hope we are able to present that once more this weekend.”
Source: www.impartial.co.uk