My mum does not watch F1, yet she knew this news. When my mum told me that Lewis Hamilton signed for Ferrari, I only realised the magnitude of this news. Many people, including myself as a Mercedes fan, did not see this coming.
As a Mercedes fan, I understand why he chose to leave. According to Hamilton, the team did not take his feedback to improve the cars. However, I think one of the major reasons for him quitting the team is that the team did not support him enough after the end of the 2021 Abu Dhabi race. After that controversial decision, I think he expected the team to fight for the championship, and to be fair, the team did help and wanted to take it to court, but they stopped.
Now, I have to make a decision. Do I stick with Mercedes or go check out another team? James Vowlves, Mercedes’s former chief strategist, is now working as a team principal at Williams. Some engineers had gone to Redbull and Ferrari, and now, with Hamilton leaving, the team is slowly but surely falling apart. It is a massive task for Toto Wolff now; instead of focusing on W15, he has to stop or slow down the brain drain and find a new driver simultaneously. But one thing is for sure: I will keep an eye on Williams. I want Albon to be successful; after listening to his talk at the High Performace podcast, I share his pain, and I wish both of us to be victorious and tell our stories.
I watched two F1 races in my life. The first time was in 2019 at Silverstone, and it was definitely an entertaining race. The second time was in 2022 at Suzuka. It was an experience that was the opposite of the 2019 race. It was sh*t, the facilities were horrible, 3 hours of red flags, and the walking distance from train stations to the track was so far. Yeah, I am never going to Suzuka anytime soon.
Enjoy some of my past F1 photos below, and see you soon (Yeah, I still need to write one more for this week).
