Did You Know | Mercedes had only one technical DNF in the 2022 season

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Did You Know |  Mercedes had only one technical DNF in the 2022 season

There are interesting statistics in every Formula 1 season and 2022 will be no different. In the section ‘Did you know that’ F1Maximum explains some of these statistics. This time, the first and directly the last technical DNF from Mercedes during the 2022 season is the focus. Despite the problems the German team had at the start of the season, the reliability of the W13 was good until the last race of the year.

The story of Mercedes in 2022 is now well known. The team of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell was unable to take off like a rocket from the starting blocks, which took almost an entire season. The W13 suffered from porpoising. The bouncing and bouncing threw a spanner in the works of the performance, and the team had to settle for the handful of podiums they managed to get. It was the completely opposite scenario from previous years, in which Mercedes was able to record one victory after another. Towards the final phase of the 2022 season, however, things went better, although one technical DNF still had to leave a mark on the end of the season.

Hamilton leaves 2022 behind in the pit lane, not on the podium

Mercedes showed in the last few races that they were making a comeback. The 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix in particular, in which Russell won the Sprint, and also the main race, gave the German formation an enormous boost. The seven-time world champion had not been able to win until the 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, so the Briton was very motivated to make another attempt at the Yas Marina circuit. The race went fairly stable for Hamilton, although he drove quite hard over a sausage kerb in the opening phase. The hard landing of the W13 on the tarmac caused the loss of performance.

All in all, the Mercedes driver managed to keep his car under control and eventually finished in P4. The retirement was postponed for a very long time and it seemed that Hamilton was just going to finish the last race of the year, but unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. On the 55th lap of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the 38-year-old came in, parked the car and was allowed to get out. There was a hydraulic problem, caused by driving over the curb and the hard landing on the tarmac afterwards. This was Mercedes’ only technical DNF in the 2022 season. The other retirements, such as Russell’s at Silverstone and Hamilton in Belgium, were crashes.

Abu Dhabi-DNF ensures the first season in fifteen years without a win

Although the chance was not very great that Hamilton would still win the 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the chance was there. Anything can happen during a race, as the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix showed. In any case, nothing happened in favor of the seven-time world champion. The 2022 season is therefore the first season in fifteen years that Hamilton has not won a single race. “We started with a car we didn’t want and we finished with a car we didn’t want. We were stuck with it and we had no choice,” the Briton said afterwards at the official Formula 1 website.

Naturally, the 38-year-old hopes the 2023 season doesn’t play out like that. Mercedes has indicated that it has worked very hard on the W14 during the winter break. With this, the team from Brackley hopes to give its drivers another championship-winning car. Mercedes is not the only team that has worked hard. Red Bull Racing and Ferrari also hope to participate in the title fight. Of the aforementioned teams, Red Bull was the first to show its car to the world. Ferrari will follow on February 14 and Mercedes will unveil the W14 on February 15. Whether the teams are actually closer to each other remains to be seen.

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