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Lewis Hamilton Looks Forward to Be Done With the Mercedes W13, Definitely Not His Favorite

Following a season where the Mercedes-AMG F1 W13 E Performance didn’t perform as well as everyone expected, Lewis Hamilton had to retire the car in the final laps of the last race, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Needless to say, he is thrilled to be almost done driving it.
Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes-AMG F1 W13 E Performance 6 photos
Photo: Instagram / Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes-AMG F1 W13 E PerformanceLewis Hamilton and Mercedes-AMG F1 W13 E PerformanceLewis Hamilton and Mercedes-AMG F1 W13 E PerformanceLewis Hamilton and Mercedes-AMG F1 W13 E PerformanceLewis Hamilton and Mercedes-AMG F1 W13 E Performance
When Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team introduced the Mercedes-AMG F1 W13 E Performance early this year, they were confident in its powers. But the truth is, it wasn’t as great as everyone hoped.

And, after a season when seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton worked tirelessly to improve it, but didn't win a single race, the car failed him once more, in the last few laps of the last race of the season.

Luckily, he is almost done driving it. He will handle the car for the last time on Tuesday, November 22, when teams have a chance to test out the 2023 Pirelli tires ahead of the new season.

For the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Hamilton and Russell qualified fifth and sixth. “I definitely wasn't expecting to see such a big gap,” Hamilton told Motorsport.com about his qualifying session. “But we're losing six tenths on the straight. So, kind of reminiscent of some of the previous races before kind of Austin, and bouncing is back. So that's not been easy."

And Hamilton knows what they need to address the next season: “Brakes, bouncing is probably number one, drag is probably number two,” he said. “Or equal number one. There's loads of other things.”

Of course, it’s not all bad, and he knows it. “We’ve obviously got some downforce, we just need to build a much more efficient car. And I think everybody in the team knows exactly what are the problems, and where they are, and where we've gone wrong and I'm pretty confident that they're not going to build the next car with any of those characteristics."

So, I'm looking forward to the end of Tuesday, which is the last time I have to drive this thing. And I don't ever plan to drive this one again. It won't be one of the cars that I request to have in a contract!"

Following his retirement from the race, he dropped to sixth place in the Drivers Championship, six points behind Scuderia Ferrari's Carlos Sainz.
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About the author: Monica Coman
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Imagine a Wenn diagram for cars and celebrities. At the intersection you'll find Monica, putting her passion for these fields and English-Spanish double major to work. She's been doing for the past seven years, most recently at autoevolution.
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