Although Mercedes has won only one grand prix in the past two seasons, it notched up 111 GP victories in the previous eight: a total of 112 over the past 10 Formula 1 campaigns, which constitute the entirety of the hybrid turbo V6 power unit era so far. In the same 10-year period Red Bull has won 66 times, Ferrari 22.
A veteran of 17 F1 seasons and 332 GPs, of which he has won an extraordinary 103, Lewis Hamilton may be occasionally bolshy, but that is merely a result of the pernicious melancholy he feels when his feverish ambition is not sated with the level of success to which he has become accustomed. What he is not is fickle. So although his team’s comparatively poor pickings over the past two years disappointed him, no doubt, that setback was by no means the sole genesis of his decision to surrender
