Lewis Hamilton isn’t expecting Red Bull’s dominance in Formula 1 to come to an end anytime soon as Max Verstappen collected a 19th win of the season in the Abu Dhabi finale.
Red Bull took victory in all but one of the 22 grands prix this season when Carlos Sainz bucked the trend by taking top honours for Ferrari in Singapore in September.
Despite ending up third in the Drivers’ Championship, Hamilton ended up winless for the second consecutive year amid Mercedes’ troubles with an inconsistent W14 car.
Despite a turbulent season, a ninth-place finish for Hamilton helped Mercedes to protect its advantage over Ferrari to claim second place in the Constructors’ standings.
“Not great. I mean I just finished ninth, [it’s been] two really bad races,” said Hamilton, who finished outside the top five for the third successive race. “I was just slow throughout the race.”
Hamilton had sustained front wing damage early on when he made contact with Pierre Gasly’s Alpine at Turn 6, leading him to complain about a loss of front-end performance.
The seven-time champion was then involved in a scrap with old rival Fernando Alonso, in which the Aston Martin driver appeared to brake-check him on the approach to Turn 5.
“Well we were flat out 300m or 400m before the corner and I was doing 180mph and the guy all of a sudden slowed down drastically ahead of me,” he said in disapproval of Alonso’s antics during a battle for 11th.
Asked if he was pleased to see the back of the W14, Hamilton bluntly responded: “Yep.”
“I really don’t know [what to expect of Mercedes’ 2024 challenger],” he continued. “The car [W14] was the same as last year for me, so…”
“Red Bull won by 17 seconds and they’ve not touched the car since August or July so you can pretty much guess where they’re going to be next year,” he added.
Sergio Perez was second across the line in Abu Dhabi after Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc allowed the Mexican past on the final tour to help boost Ferrari’s prospects.
Perez had acquired a five-second time penalty for causing a collision when attempting to pass Lando Norris. Hamilton’s Mercedes team-mate, George Russell, came home fourth but had managed to keep within five seconds of the Red Bull to be promoted to the final step of the rostrum.
The result saw Mercedes outscore the Italian marque 409-406 at the conclusion of a 22-round season.
“Not particularly,” Hamilton said when asked by Sky F1 if a challenging season could provide some valuable learning going into next year.
“Not too much. It’s not been a great year in general. The fact I survived it [is the biggest positive for him to take]. Probably that’s about it.”
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