Martin Brundle in disbelief over Lewis Hamilton F1 reality at Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
The 2023 Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix season finale gave Sky Sports pundit Martin Brundle the perfect opportunity to deliver his verdict on Lewis Hamilton and the worst winless performance of his career.
Martin Brundle is surprised that Lewis Hamilton has not won a Formula 1 race for almost two years.
At the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in December 2021, the seven-time world champion extended his winning streak to 103 victories. But he hasn’t added anything since a few miserable seasons with the Mercedes team.
The team gave him two cars that Red Bull couldn’t challenge for the runaway title. So while Max Verstappen broke all his records in a single season, Hamilton was powerless to stop him.
The Brit has never gone a year without at least one F1 win. After qualifying for the 11th Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, it became clear that this would be his second consecutive winless season.
Sky Sports F1 pundit Brundle still can’t believe it’s been so long since he saw Hamilton on the podium. “It still amazes me that Lewis hasn’t won a championship in two seasons,” he said.
“He’s got another chance this weekend, but I think he’s in good form, especially for the second half of the season.” But it wasn’t enough for 7 games. A single world champion who once threatened Verstappen. It ended at the United States Grand Prix, where he overtook the Dutchman in the closing stages of the race. Although he had a short lap, he finished a few seconds behind Verstappen, giving Mercedes hope that they can finally close the performance gap. However, Hamilton was later disqualified due to excessive bottom plate wear, showing that Mercedes had lowered the car to the ground illegally. This increases downforce and improves car performance. That means the results can’t be used to measure how close the silver arrows were. Subsequent races demonstrated that there was still a significant performance gap. Despite entering the season finale this weekend, Verstappen overcame a poor performance in practice to put the RB19 on pole for the 12th time this season and claim a record 19th win of the year. Hamilton, 38, is delighted to see another memorable season come to an end. “I’m very happy that it’s over,” he told reporters in Abu Dhabi. “[The cars] are more inconsistent than ever. They just go up and down.”
