For Hamilton, with seven titles and over 100 grand prix wins behind him, ambition takes on a different meaning. There are no calls to be nervous about. It maybe helped that he was thrown straight into a fully competitive situation as a rookie, didn’t have that progressive build-up of Norris’ career, heightening the anticipation of a fast car. His psychological challenges have been quite different. The biggest one has been the combination of the lost title of Abu Dhabi ’21 and the mediocre cars he’s had since, denying him the opportunity of fighting back. With all that success behind you and time ticking by, how do you keep the desire and focus? Where are the joins between that and the physical skills? Are they still intact? What about when you have a fast, hungry team mate who often beats you? Deal with that week-in, week-out 22-24 times a year, under the spotlight, with everyone asking you the questions you are asking yourself.
You cannot fall back on past achievements to maintain the required inner confidence. That all means nothing as soon as you are next in the car and time is there to cruelly expose any shortfall as well as pushing you towards inevitable decline. He is fighting that inevitability, but that doesn’t mean he has to surrender to it yet.
That’s why his victory last weekend was such an emotional one. If only because it showed him all was not lost. That his dream of rising again might still be possible. That the good stuff is still in there even after being denied the oxygen of success for so long.
“The important thing is how you continue to dig deep even when you feel like you’re at the bottom of the barrel,” he said on Sunday. “There’s definitely been days between 2021 and here when I didn’t feel like I was good enough or I was going to get back to where I am today.”
Hamilton is back on top
Mercedes
He expressed similar thoughts when we interviewed him at the end of last year, saying, “There are always going to be moments when you’re like, ‘Is it me or is it the car?’ Do you still have it? Has it gone? Because you’re missing that… when the magic happens, when everything comes together, the car and you and you get that spark it’s extraordinary and that’s what you’re in the search for. Of course [I had these moments of doubt]; I’m only human. If anyone in the world tells you they don’t have those things they’re in denial. We’re all human beings.”
Then there’s poor old Sergio Perez, into his fourth season alongside a phenomenon and not measuring up. It’s been a similar story for the last three years: a reasonable start, a sudden crashing fall triggering an apparent confidence crisis. During that period he’s had to accept the reality that he cannot do this as well as the guy in the other car. Occasionally – once, maybe twice, per year – he can come close but overall there is just an onslaught of a monstrous performance gap. How do you live with that when your whole career has been about building towards a goal. Was that goal ever realistic? Was he kidding himself? How deep can he go in asking himself these questions? How equipped is he? Now it’s seriously impacting upon his prospects as Red Bull ponders how long it can wait for him to turn around his form so that he can at least support Verstappen’s title bid.
When your team-mate is the one man not suffering any sort of confidence crisis – seemingly ever – Perez’s internal battle is beginning to look unwinnable.