"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"- Lewis Hamilton on dealing with an uncompetitive Mercedes W13 in the 2022 F1 season

After the poor results that the Mercedes W13 has provided, Lewis Hamilton has revealed that no matter how hard the team worked, it has been extremely difficult throughout the season to deal with the car.

Hamilton was surprised by how long it took the engineers to come up with a solution for the car. The Briton also stated that not only him, but the entire team was surprised by how unpredictable the car was. Motorsport.com quotes him:

"I didn't expect it to take the guys so long. They also didn't expect it to take them so long to understand what's causing bouncing. They had to come up with new things that we didn't have before."

The seven-time world champion also stated that the team is still working hard:

"But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and we're still standing."

The Mercedes W13 is the first car since 2011 that has proven to be uncompetitive against rival teams. The car has suffered largely from porpoising since the beginning of the season.

This caused the team a major loss in speed and they were unable to compete with Ferrari and Red Bull upfront. Though they secured third place in the constructor's championship, a race win is still a long shot for the car.

The car saw fans and drivers confused at many race weekends as it had an extreme pace during one of the sessions and then fell back into midfield. Lewis Hamilton stated that he had trouble explaining the problem with the car because he himself couldn't clearly understand it.

The 37-year-old used rather confusing examples to help his team understand the errors with the car. However, Hamilton has carved an optimistic outlook through the struggle. Lewis believes that even though the times have been challenging for the entire crew, it has brought them together and made them much stronger as a unit. Lewis Hamilton said:

"But I think surprisingly it's been a really strong time of change for all of us. We've become stronger and closer as a team."

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Lewis Hamilton reveals the team had high expectations from the W13

In February, during Barcelona's first winter testing, as Lewis Hamilton described it, the Brackley-based team was excited to run a very fast W13. Hamilton revealed that the entire team was very optimistic about the car.

Even though the winter testing looked decent for them, the slow pace of the car was a major factor after the first race. Hamilton mentioned:

"We sat together in February and were all very optimistic. Everyone told us that we would have an extremely fast car."

However, after the team realized that the car was not competitive at all, Hamilton revealed that the entire crew was extremely disappointed. He also stated that it was a struggle for everyone:

"But then when you find out the damn thing isn't working and we're screwed, it's been tough for everyone. I think everyone was really struggling."

The new aerodynamic regulations that were introduced this season promised closer fighting for the drivers through ground effects. However, this didn't quite work out for Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton as the only cars they battled when the season started were on the back of the field.

Although their pace has improved relatively, the team is still far from a win as Red Bull and Max Verstappen have total control over both the championships.

The 2022 season hasn't gone too bad for George Russell (given that he just moved to Mercedes this year). However, this might as well turn out to be the first F1 season for Lewis Hamilton without a race win, which would be a huge blow to the entire team and the star driver.