Hamilton wants to see more battles
"The Max Verstappen era is underway," announces Lewis Hamilton. But the British driver would like to see wheel-to-wheel battles with the other drivers, just like in karting."
Since the regulation of 2022, Red Bull and Max Verstappen have been dominating the other teams. Lewis Hamilton states that Formula 1 has entered a new era of dominance.
For a very, very long time in our sport, there have always been big chunks of domination. I had it, and I was really, really lucky to have it with this team, Michael Schumacher had it, Sebastian Vettel had it, and now it’s Max’s time, declared the seven-time world champion on the Checkered Flag podcast.
The driver, who experienced domination with Mercedes for almost 7 years (6 titles won by Lewis Hamilton and a title won by Nico Rosberg), does not find the periods of domination fulfilling.
« On some of the other occasions when the gap was a bit bigger. It wasn’t really the most rewarding period. But we can’t do anything about it, we just did a better job. And that’s where Max comes in. In the end, he and his team just did a better job than everyone else, and you can’t take that away from them. »
For the Mercedes driver, going back to a battle like in 2021 would be great for Formula 1. « As a sport, we need to work, we need to have a conversation about how we can set it up to be better for the future. And for that, we would need closer races where the field is closer, with tight battles between Red Bull and Ferrari and Mercedes and Aston Martin. That would be epic. »
« We don’t know how long it will take or if we are putting the car on the right track and will be able to fight them next year, or if Ferrari can, or if it will be us next. It’s my dream because that’s when I grew up racing go-karts, it was close battles wheel against wheel, says the driver with 320 Grand Prix.
