Lewis Hamilton is about to embark on his final race with Mercedes before his much-anticipated move to Ferrari.
Mercedes haven’t been able to give Lewis Hamilton the send-off they would have liked this season.
His iconic victory at Silverstone was the emotional moment that he, the team and hundreds of thousands of fans were all desperate to see.
However, it now appears as though that will be the last time he steps foot on the top step of a podium in Mercedes colours, having only earned his race win at Spa thanks to George Russell’s subsequent disqualification.
The last few years haven’t gone to plan and while Hamilton has always wanted to race for Ferrari one day, it’s hard to imagine him moving on if he was still winning and challenging for titles.
The 39-year-old’s comeback during the Las Vegas Grand Prix was extremely impressive, but Hamilton’s woes in qualifying continued and almost certainly prevented him from challenging for victory.
The Qatar Grand Prix was a nightmare for Hamilton and speaking on the Channel 4 coverage of the race, Alice Powell was previewing his impending move to Maranello.
Alice Powell thinks Ferrari might be worried about Lewis Hamilton’s current attitude
Hamilton scored three points in the Qatar Sprint Race before qualifying sixth for the Grand Prix.
That’s in stark contrast to Russell controversially securing pole position, although he quickly lost the lead to Max Verstappen once the race started.
It was put to Powell that Hamilton isn’t currently happy and has been consistently beaten in qualifying by Russell, to which she said: “He’s a bit hormonal I think!
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“He just wants this season to end by the sounds of it. [It’s been] very mixed this weekend, he’s been outqualified a lot by his teammate and that’s a hard place to be in.
“Confidence drops massively, but Lewis is a seven-time world champion, he’s had peaks, he’s had real lows.
“This is a real low and it’s not a good look with Ferrari looking across at Lewis going, oh, please don’t bring that attitude over here, please!”
Lewis Hamilton’s race went from bad to worse at the Qatar Grand Prix
Before Hamilton had even started from the third row of the grid, he knew he was in trouble.
The 39-year-old’s false start and subsequent momentary pause to try and avoid a penalty meant he lost several positions on the first lap.
Hamilton was desperate for help on the team radio to work out why he was so slow compared to his rivals.
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Unfortunately, his chances of scoring points ended when he was penalised for speeding in the pit lane.
The safety car had led the pack through the pit lane to avoid any debris on the main straight caused by Alex Albon’s mirror being destroyed by Valtteri Bottas and a loss of concentration saw Hamilton nearly collect Lando Norris when he broke at the last second to try and avoid a penalty.
It’s been suggested that Hamilton has fallen out of love with Mercedes and when he asked to retire the car, engineer Pete Bonnington had to urge him to keep going.
Their final race together in Abu Dhabi is going to be emotional and bring to an end F1’s most successful partnership.
However, almost every F1 fan will be hoping that they can end their time together on a high rather than with a whimper.
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