Silverstone would already be packed with thousands screaming his name, but his podium finish in Montreal would have skyrocketed his confidence.
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If there is anyone in need of a redemption story, it has to be Lewis Hamilton. Being a seven-time world champion, the Brit already had a ton of expectations pinned on him to finish on the podium in almost every race of any given season. Usually that is not a problem for the 37-year-old as he has shown his class season after season, dominating the turbo hybrid era with Mercedes. 2021 saw Hamilton controversially miss out on a record-breaking eighth world title in the last lap of the final race against Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Hamilton would have hoped for redemption in 2022 but Formula One’s new technical regulations completely turned the tables on the Silver Arrows. For starters, Toto Wolff’s team never seemed to find a solution to their reliability issues at the beginning of the season and while things have gotten better, Hamilton is nowhere close to the world championship picture.
Currently sixth in the drivers’ championship, Hamilton is 98 points off leader Max Verstappen. He started the season with a P3 finish at Bahrain but things did take a turn for the worse since. The Brit finished P10 in the Saudi Arabian GP but fought back with P4 in Australia. The lowest point of Hamilton’s season came at the Emilia-Romagna GP where the Brit finished P13. Since then, there has been a gradual improvement with P6, P5 and P8 at Miami, Spain and Monaco respectively. Baku saw the Brit in P4 and finally, at the Candian GP, the seven-time world champion found himself on the podium with a P3 finish.
If this trend is anything to go by, Silverstone may very well see the redemption of its hometown hero on Sunday. Hamilton’s Free Practice sessions have been promising so far. In FP1, the Brit went second-fastest in a rain-soaked session, only half-a-second behind former teammate Valterri Bottas in the Alfa Romeo. In FP2, conditions changed for the better and lap times reduced drastically. Hamilton was on top of the speed charts yet again, going second-fastest. He was only 0.163s behind Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.
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Apart from being his home race, the British GP has been a happy hunting ground for the seven-time world champion for almost a decade. His first win at Silverstone came way back in 2008 when Hamilton displayed a mega driving performance in the rain. He had to wait six years for his next home win but there was no looking back since. Since 2014, the Mercedes man has won every single British GP so far. Top continue that streak this season would be a humungous task but something that would certainly set his season back on the right path.
Coming into the race, Hamilton has all the momentum in the world. Silverstone would already be packed with thousands screaming his name, but his podium finish in Montreal would have skyrocketed his and the team’s confidence. Winning would definitely be on the 37-year-old’s mind as he prepares to show exactly what he is made of in front of his adoring supporters.
