Lewis Hamilton has spoken about the characteristics of his Mercedes W13 machine after a frustrating season for the Silver Arrows.
Having spent much of the last decade dominating Formula 1, it was a surprise for the paddock to witness Mercedes struggle to fight at the front in 2022.
Aside from rare purple patches in Spain, Silverstone and Brazil, the German squad lacked the performance to fight for race victories.
Not only was the W13 behind its rivals in terms of raw pace, but its often unpredictable nature prevented Mercedes from making assured estimations of their pace deficit to Red Bull and Ferrari.
Strong races, such as the Hungarian GP, would often be followed with more complicated weekends, such as Spa, ruining their momentum and late bid for second place in the standings.
Lewis Hamilton has elaborated on the issues which affected Mercedes most detrimentally last year:
“The first big step was Barcelona. That was our first hint of there being more potential in the car.
