Red Bull Racing Advisor Helmut Marko joke that Lewis Hamilton should have retired at the end of last season.
Seven-time champion Hamilton has endured a nightmare start to 2022 and in Sunday’s Grand Prix Emilia Romagna found himself beaten by Max VerstappenThe controversial man beat him to last year’s championship on the last lap of the last race.
Hamilton ranked 13th poorly at Imola in what is considered one of the worst races of his F1 career.
When asked by Sky Sports what he thinks is going through Hamilton’s head at the moment, Marko laughed and said: “I mean, he was beaten by us. Maybe he should have stopped last year, he was. thinking! Maybe.”
After the race, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff apologized to Hamilton over the radio, admitting the car “didn’t work.”
The Mercedes has suffered the most extreme case of “dancing” on the grid, the name given to the new F1 car experience of new cars that ignite intensely when driven straight ahead at high speeds.
Hamilton’s teammate George Russell said the matter was so bad that on Sunday he finished the race with chest and back pain.
Despite the car problems, Russell still finished in fourth place.
Wolff said Hamilton deserves better from the car.
“We’re not good enough for a world champion, not worthy for a world champion,” Wolff told Sky Sports after the race. “We just need to fix the car.
“Lewis deserves more than us. But we are a team, so we all need to do our best to give him a machine that can fight for places up front.
“The guy is the best driver in the world and he doesn’t have the machines and the equipment underneath to be able to do it.”
In Imola, Hamilton twice abbreviated his chance won a record eighth championship this year, once after qualifying and again after Sunday’s grand slam.
