"Even a Lewis Hamilton starts to stumble" - Former F1 driver feels Mercedes man's struggles in 2022 season due to teammate of 'different calibre'

Former F1 driver Timo Glock claimed that Lewis Hamilton has been struggling in 2022 against Mercedes teammate George Russell due to the latter being "of a different calibre."

Glock, who drove for Toyota and Jordan during his career, believes that the seven-time world champion is “starting to stumble” and hasn’t been able to keep Russell “under control” as has he has done with his past teammates.

Speaking to Auto Bild ahead of the 2022 Canadian GP, he said:

“He has always had his teammates pretty much under control – but George Russell is of a different calibre.”

He added:

“It’s like a chain reaction, and then even a Lewis Hamilton starts to stumble. I also think that a lot is going on in his head because he hasn’t been exposed to such a situation yet.”

Since joining Mercedes at the start of the season, George Russell has soundly beaten Lewis Hamilton in terms of race results. The young Briton has outqualified his legendary teammate five times in eight races, while finishing ahead of him in seven races.

Despite his consistent top-five finishes throughout the season, the 24-year-old's average pace on race day has not been much better than Hamilton's. On many occasions, Hamilton has shown superior race pace compared to his younger teammate. His failure to convert that pace into strong finishes has mainly been due to poor qualifying performances as well as bad luck.

Meanwhile, Timo Glock feels that the 37-year-old driver is less happy within the team this season. He added:

“You can hear it in his voice on the pit radio that certain things don’t make him happy. Things are just not coming together this year.”

He added:

“It remains to be seen how the whole thing will develop when Mercedes maybe starts competing for victories again this year, which I think they will.”

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Mercedes boss claims that both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are performing equally well

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has refuted claims that Lewis Hamilton is struggling to match teammate George Russell in the same car. The Austrian believes the difference between the two drivers to be “small” and claimed that their performances were similar.

Speaking to Channel 4 ahead of the Canadian GP, he said:

“I think as long as the car is not good enough to really be racing at the front, the differences are small, and I don’t think you can have a pattern saying ‘George is continuously outperforming Lewis’ or the other way around.”

He further said:

“We have seen Lewis in Barcelona; he was the genius that we know.”

Lewis Hamilton has consistently been experimenting with his car’s setup this season in pursuit of performance, but more importantly, in pursuit of potential solutions to their niggling problems.

While the approach’s merits are so far unclear, it has often proven to be risky and counterproductive. It will be interesting to see whether his side of the garage can get things right this weekend at the Canadian GP.