{"id":300528,"date":"2023-11-26T01:24:50","date_gmt":"2023-11-26T01:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportstons.com\/?p=300528"},"modified":"2023-11-26T01:24:50","modified_gmt":"2023-11-26T01:24:50","slug":"lewis-hamilton-says-hes-definitely-happy-the-season-is-nearly-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportstons.com\/racing\/f1\/lewis-hamilton-says-hes-definitely-happy-the-season-is-nearly-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis\u00a0Hamilton says he&apos;s &apos;definitely happy&apos; the season is nearly over"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Lewis\u00a0Hamilton admits he&#8217;s &#8216;definitely happy&#8217; a difficult season for himself and Mercedes &#8216;is nearly over&#8217;, with one race left to decide if the team can beat Ferrari to runners-up spot in the constructors&#8217; championship<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><span>Lewis Hamilton has admitted he cannot wait for the current season to end<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>He finished 11th in qualifying for the Abu Dhabi GP, as Mercedes fight for second\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><span>Max Verstappen secured his 12th pole position of the season in Abu Dhabi<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is a race for second place, but it has been that way all season. And Lewis Hamilton admitted on Saturday night that he cannot wait for it to end.<\/p>\n<p>The Briton qualified a dismal 11th for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with \u00a38million hanging on whether his Mercedes team can paper over the cracks of a dispiriting season by beating Ferrari to runners-up spot in the constructors\u2019 championship.<\/p>\n<p>The Silver Arrows lead the Italians by four points with just Sunday&#8217;s 58 laps of this marathon campaign remaining. But, it should be noted, they lie a far-flung 430 points behind Red Bull, for whom Max Verstappen claimed his customary pole position.<\/p>\n<p>Whoever finishes second, Mercedes\u2019 season can hardly be ranked as progress. They won one race last season and have won none this. Last year, they finished third, but \u2018only\u2019 244 points back.<\/p>\n<p>Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc is best placed to score heavily on Sunday evening local time, having qualified second. His Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz was a misjudged and traffic-impeded 16th, but can yet make up ground and score heavily, such is the inherent pace of the red cars.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/25\/21\/78234779-0-image-a-70_1700948303254.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Lewis Hamilton has admitted that he cannot wait for the tough Formula One season to end<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/25\/21\/78234781-0-image-a-71_1700948335685.jpg\" height=\"357\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>He qualified 11th in Abu Dhabi, as Mercedes look to beat Ferrari in the constructors&#8217; race\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As for Mercedes, George Russell was fourth best. The 25-year-old, who has been outperformed by Hamilton generally this year, was the more assured of the pair throughout practice and qualifying.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It is just a very unpredictable car and it has been all year,\u2019 said Hamilton, who has secured one podium in the last five races and admitted he had been \u2018off all weekend\u2019. He added: \u2018I\u2019m definitely happy it is nearly over. It is more inconsistent than ever before. It is up and down from the moment you hit the brakes, the moment you turn, the moment you hit the apex. It is massively out of balance and hard to predict what is going to happen.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>That verdict comes at the end of a year of false dawns for Mercedes. One wonders if they are any nearer discovering the essential ingredients of the ground-effect era 20 months after the current regulations took hold, a fallow period that has seen one technical director move sideways and then leave altogether; a failure pockmarked by obstinacy in sticking with an original design that was flawed for longer than was explicable. Now they are left scrapping over the difference between \u00a3105m in prize money for finishing second against \u00a396m for coming third. That will impact staff bonuses \u2014 determined by the constructors\u2019 standings \u2014 and, to a lesser extent, perhaps, optimism on the future.<\/p>\n<p>Others, such as McLaren, are coming on stronger. Their Oscar Piastri was third quickest on Saturday. And team-mate Lando Norris, fifth, would likely have beaten him but for his qualifying mistake. \u2018I\u2019m doing a s*** job on Saturdays,\u2019 said the Briton.<\/p>\n<p>Going back to Mercedes, Damon Hill, the 1996 world champion, hopes the serial winners can rediscover the high road, but he knows there are no certainties.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/25\/21\/78234939-0-image-a-72_1700948567758.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>McLaren&#8217;s Oscar Piastri was third quickest on Saturday, as the team finish the season strongly<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I have a gut instinct that there is a bunker mentality,\u2019 he said. \u2018When you have been winning for so long you can think what you are doing is always right and what everyone else is doing is wrong. Then you can get lost.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Asked if team principal Toto Wolff is missing his former non-executive chairman, the triple world champion Niki Lauda who died in 2019, Hill thought this was probably the case, saying: \u2018He was a clear, hard-nosed pragmatist.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018What does Toto know of F1 other than success? Never the doldrums.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Not until now, no matter how Mercedes\u2019 private duel with Ferrari turns out.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/formulaone\/article-12791203\/Lewis-Hamilton-admits-hes-definitely-happy-difficult-season-Mercedes-nearly-one-race-left-decide-team-beat-Ferrari-runners-spot-constructors-championship.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lewis\u00a0Hamilton admits he&#8217;s &#8216;definitely happy&#8217; a difficult season for himself and Mercedes &#8216;is nearly over&#8217;, with one race left to <span class=\"more-text\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lewis\u00a0Hamilton says he&amp;apos;s &amp;apos;definitely happy&amp;apos; 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