Sir Lewis Hamilton is back, and he has a brand-new company car.
The Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team was the final top-tier team to introduce its F1 car and crew for the 2022 season. Only Alpine still has to unveil its car, but the French team is waiting until right before the testing in Barcelona next weekend.
Toto Wolff started the introduction by stating that “we start again from zero.” Wolff is also happy with recent changes, and we assume he’s referring to Michael Masi getting the ax.
After months of speculation, it has also been confirmed that Lewis Hamilton will be joining Mercedes for the tenth year in a row. This year George Russel joins Hamilton after the departure of Valtteri Bottas. Russel is no stranger to the Mercedes team, having been a test and backup driver for several years.
Lewis Hamilton seems to be back on form. He looked his old positive self and talked about his goals for the season. Personally, he doesn’t have any but mentions that he’s keen to help his team achieve the ultimate goal of winning the constructor’s and driver’s titles. Also, let’s not kid ourselves. All the drivers are out there to win.
Russel mentioned that his time as a junior driver made it much easier to fall in with the team. Both Hamilton and Russel are keen to help develop the new car. “The car we start with and the one we end the season with will be drastically different,” said Russel.
As for driving alongside arguably the greatest driver of all time, Russel feels privileged. More than anything, he seems keen to learn.
From his side, Toto Wolff hopes for another title even though he’s well aware that the new regulations make it impossible to predict how the car will perform.
Hamilton said exactly what we were expecting him to say on the retirement rumors. “I never said I was going to stop.” Like we said multiple times before, Sir Lewis simply went on vacation and surrounded himself with family and friends until he was in “attack” mode again. That single word tells us a lot about how he will approach the 2022 season.
We know he'll have the backup of a fantastic team, and the Mercedes-AMG One company car probably doesn't hurt.
We were fortunate enough to spend time behind the scenes with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team, and they are a dedicated bunch. From Hamilton's side, he goes out of his way to show his appreciation for those around him.
As for the car, W13 results from 18 months of hard work. According to Mercedes, W13 is 98% new, with the steering wheel being the primary carryover from the previous model. It's strange that Mercedes put such an effort into an all-new engine since the extensive power unit regulations only come into effect in 2026.
“Ever since work on W13 began, I have seen an exciting enthusiasm in our team members like never before, thanks to the scale of opportunity that these technical regulations provide,” said Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team. “Towards the end of the year, when the car build project truly came together, I felt a deep passion across the whole organization, not only in the technical arena but across our bases at Brackley and Brixworth who were embracing a mindset of ‘we can do this.’”
Keyword: New Mercedes F1 Car Will Give Max Verstappen Nightmares