F1: Could British Grand Prix mark a turning point in the season for Lewis Hamilton & Mercedes?

The 24-year-old Belgian-Dutch world champion Max Verstappen has won six of the nine races to date and is the bookies favourite to prevail again at Silverstone on Sunday. Should he do so, he will be looking increasingly well set for a second successive title.

As things currently stand, those in closest pursuit of Verstappen are his Red Bull teammate, Sergio Perez, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Languishing down in sixth place in the drivers’ standings at present is Lewis Hamilton – a whopping 98 points adrift of the man who so dramatically edged him out for the title last year.

Despite winning a joint-record seven World Drivers’ Championship titles (tied with Michael Schumacher), and holding the records for the most wins (103), pole positions (103), and podium finishes (184), Hamilton has only registered two of those first-three finishes this season.

On the plus side, the British legend did finish third last time out at the Canadian Grand Prix and was within seven seconds of Verstappen.

It does need to be taken into account that Hamilton was only able to get so close to Verstappen after the introduction of a final safety car saw the race resumed with only 16 laps remaining, but it was a sign of improvement nonetheless.

Our tip

British Grand Prix

Max Verstappen is a solid Even money favourite to win the British GP

Get Evens on Max Verstappen to win at bet365*

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British Grand Prix, Silverstone

July 03, 2022

1:00 pm GMT+1

Mercedes On The Way Back?

The noises coming out of the Mercedes team would also suggest that there are now reasons to believe that Hamilton can be increasingly competitive over the remainder of the season.

Hamilton has paid the price for Mercedes’ gamble with their radical design (dubbed “zero-pods”), which has led to performance issues. However, they now appear to have dealt with the aerodynamic “porpoising” problem, although there is still work to be done on resolving the bouncing caused by a very stiff suspension set-up.

As Hamilton himself said after Montreal, “Moving forwards, we will be a little more cautious on doing too many experiments as it really does hinder you through the weekend, especially if you only have first and second practice in the dry.

“It has given me a lot of hope there is more to come from this car, that the potential is truly there if we can get the set-up right.”

There’s still a lot of work to be done before Mercedes can match Red Bull and Ferrari for race speed, but they finally seem to be on the right track.

It might be a bit much to expect Hamilton to claim a record-extending ninth win in front of his adoring fans at the British Grand Prix on Sunday, but another podium finish looks a distinct possibility.

* Betting odds quoted correct at the time of article publication. All odds are subject to changes.