Lewis Hamilton said he has never felt so “blown” as he did after his first Formula 1 race since his COVID-19 bout, almost inevitably triggering criticism about the world champion.
From the moment Hamilton said he was not feeling “100%” fit after qualifying, there were questions that doubted his sincerity and his motives for returning, and whether it was wise.
Should he be driving if he was still unwell? Why the rush to return for a dead rubber if not in peak condition?
Why not just sit this one out and let George Russell have another crack in a Mercedes instead of robbing the rising star of an opportunity just for the sake of one more race?
First, to apply some context to Hamilton’s comments about the effects of having the virus, he was not parading it as an excuse.
It took a while to tease details out of him and he did not blame either defeat on Saturday or Sunday on having the virus – he just said that he could really feel the after-effects of it still.
“I am truly grateful for my health and to be alive and looking forward to recovering over the next period of time” :: Lewis Hamilton
There is a crucial difference between saying it made it harder and saying that he was slower because it was harder.
Hamilton never said the level of performance was reduced. He just implied it took more out of him than normal to achieve it.
Did it impact his drive? Hamilton said it did “massively” – but stressed that was from a physical perspective.
“Considering the past couple of weeks I’ve had, I’m really happy with the weekend,” said Hamilton.
“It’s obviously not 100% and not perhaps as good as we would like. But congratulations to Max [Verstappen].
“That was a really hard race for me, physically. All year, physically I have been fine but today I definitely wasn’t. So, I’m just glad it’s over.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so blown,” he added. “My body is not feeling great. But look on the bright side: I made it through and you know, I didn’t think anytime last week I would be here.
“I am truly grateful for my health and to be alive and looking forward to recovering over the next period of time we have, getting back into training and get my body back to where I know it should be.”
Cynically one could look at that and consider this was Hamilton not wanting to use it as an explicit excuse but making sure people knew there might be a reason out of his control.
But for a seven-time world champion and the dominant force of 2020, a tiny deficit to team-mate Valtteri Bottas is not something that needs much justification. So, the inclination is to take Hamilton at his word rather than read too much into it.
Remember, Hamilton did not want to address how bad his symptoms were when first asked about it on Friday and it was the same again on Saturday.
Instead, he just said he was feeling the impact of spending a week dealing with the virus, one that – aside from killing 1.6million people worldwide – can leave a victim utterly drained of energy depending on the severity of the symptoms.
He revealed he’d lost weight during the week or so he was suffering, and it appeared he hadn’t been able to train for six or seven days during his isolation.
During Hamilton’s absence, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff would only confirm his driver was certainly not asymptomatic. And Hamilton also added that he just felt a lack of overall energy. These are entirely consistent with a COVID hangover.
As for his ‘premature’ comeback: the virus passed, he tested negative, and he was allowed to return. He felt well in himself.
Why return? Well, why wouldn’t he? It’s his car, he has contractual obligations, he has a desire to race, he has a shot of victory, he feels well enough to. He had plenty of motivation.
“It would have been a long gap between Bahrain and race one [of 2021],” Hamilton said. “It was important for me to get back, get back to that continuity and finish the year off strong with the team.
“Yes, we didn’t win but still we got a second and third and I think that’s still a strong result.”
Should Hamilton have raced? Yes. Would Russell have been more competitive? No
It’s also a result that Russell would have found harder to support, regardless of his exceptional debut.
Abu Dhabi was always going to be a tougher test, with many more corners (especially of the type he had a small issue with in Bahrain) and more expectation around him.
Given both regular Mercedes drivers did just enough to keep the second Red Bull of Alex Albon off the podium, it’s slightly simplistic to think Hamilton’s return denied Russell the podium he should have had a week earlier.
The reason for that is Hamilton’s weekend performance had a perfectly logical pattern. There was nothing unusual in the manner of how he qualified and finished behind Bottas – he had provisional pole after the first qualifying runs and was then pipped by Bottas by six-hundredths of a second.
That is more or less the Bottas margin of advantage on the few occasions he can beat Hamilton. And it was over a lap not twice as long as Bahrain Outer, but much more complicated, which means comparing Russell’s 0.026s deficit one week to Hamilton’s 0.061s the next is ridiculous.
Meanwhile, Mercedes’ defeat at Max Verstappen’s hands was a legacy of simply not having a quick enough car.
In qualifying this came down to not maximising the softs, in the race it was having a bit too much understeer that meant the Red Bull was fractionally faster.
That both Mercedes ran with their engines slightly conservative, though worth less than a tenth in lap time and not the difference between victory and defeat, was another factor.
“Unless we were on pole, we were never going to win this race” :: Andrew Shovlin
So, to answer two simple but lingering questions from the weekend: Should Hamilton have raced? Yes. Would Russell have been more competitive? No.
This was a Red Bull upset rooted in logic and one of the ‘one-in-three-or-four’ circumstances Bottas can get the upper hand on Hamilton. That Hamilton’s edge was mildly blunted by the after-effects of COVID is just a factor within it and not a defining difference – he never claimed otherwise and neither did his team.
“We’ve worked with Lewis for a long, long time,” said Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.
“He will have been ill, he would have had issues like we all do in a long season, where you’ve got colds or flu or something and I’ve never really heard him say ‘I’m not up to it’. He will always want to race. He will always want to qualify. He will always go the extra mile.
“But, fundamentally, we didn’t have the best car. We need to look at whether we could have got more out of it. Whether it was an issue where we positioned it in terms of set-up, or whether it’s something to do with this circuit that suited the Red Bulls.
“There’s a lot there that we simply don’t understand right now and that’s just going to sit on the job list of things for us to get stuck into over the next week or so.
“But, to be honest, I think while Lewis wouldn’t have been feeling great, the whole weekend just looked like Red Bull had the upper hand by a bit and for us, unless we were on pole, we were never going to win this race.”
