Seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton has some hefty competition ahead of him in the 2023 Formula 1 season. The 38-year-old admitted that he is concerned about the possibility of never getting ahead of Max Verstappen before deciding to leave the sport. The Mercedes driver had multiple issues last season after a controversial 2021 campaign where he lost the title to the Dutchman by a single-digit figure.

With the clock winding down, the Brit and the rest of the Mercedes F1 team need to close the gap to a dominant Red Bull machine to reclaim the top spot over eight months.

How Can Lewis Hamilton Win Another F1 title?

READ MORE: What’s New In The 2023 F1 Season?

A bid for eight

Mercedes secured all but one of the 16 Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles between 2014 and 2021. However, Red Bull was there to spoil the party for the German constructor as the Milton Keynes-based team bagged the last two championship titles.

Early-season issues with the brand-new car and porpoising left the team engineers in a ditch while the drivers remained helpless. A major change was required at the Mercedes factory to transform the W13 into a more competitive machine. Upgrades followed late in the season and yielded positive results. However, there wasn’t enough time to catch up with Red Bull and Ferrari by that time. Hamilton did duke it out with Verstappen at several races late into the season and Russell put Mercedes back on the podium.

Hamilton will try to add more silverware to his eight World Championship trophies in hopes of surpassing Michael Schumacher’s record. However, the Stevenage-born driver expressed concerns over whether he will have enough time to outpace his competitors before the end of his career.

In an interview with Lewis, he said “There are days where I do feel like I’m not enough, there are days where I don’t feel like I’m good enough,” followed up by, “People can be like, ‘Yeah, but you’ve won seven world titles’ but still there are days where I question ‘have you still got it, can you still be the best?’ I’m having that conversation with myself often.”

This season at Mercedes

Time will tell if Mercedes made changes big enough to snatch the 2023 title from the defending champions. We’re only in the second year of the new technical era, but the team expressed optimistic remarks that could get Hamilton back on track. Team principal Toto Wolff mentioned towards the end of the season that “I think we understand more now what it is where we got it wrong with the car”. He added, “We thought we could run on the deck, but you can’t!”

That being said, will their new zero-side pod design be completely out of the picture in 2023? Or will several characteristics of the original design find their way to the W14? Aficionados, sports fans, and bettors await with anticipation when Mercedes’ new contender is unveiled to the public at Silverstone on February 15, 2023. If everything goes according to plan, there’s always a good chance Lewis Hamilton completes another record-breaking feat.

Once the first major step is complete, the next target is pretty straightforward: get back to the winners’ circle regularly and surprise their opponents with more championship trophies. But, Mercedes moves forward without long-time strategist James Vowles, who recently moved to Williams to take on the team principal role.

Where to Bet on F1 with Crypto

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