24 January 2024 , 07:00
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Doubting Lewis Hamilton is hardly a novel pastime. People have been at it for years.
But these days there is one question which keeps being repeatedly asked, rather answered, about the seven-time world champion. Does he still have it within him to secure an eighth?
For the last two years, he hasn't had the chance to give his own response. The cars provided to him by Mercedes simply haven't been good enough to challenge Red Bull for championship glory. The W13 used in 2022 won just one race, while its successor failed to take a single victory.
George Russell won that one race, in Brazil, meaning Hamilton has endured more than two years without standing on the top step of an F1 podium. With no guarantee his team will build a better car any time soon, there is a real risk that he has already done so for the last time.
Doubting his chances of winning an F1 race and doubting Hamilton himself are two very different things. The first is reasonable, given how dominant Max Verstappen and his Red Bull team have been, and the fact the Brit is now 39 and in the twilight of his career.
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But do the latter at your own peril. David Coulthard felt brave enough to do so recently, when he said: "This is not Lewis at his prime - this is Lewis in a very frustrating two-year state of underperforming. When he gets a winning car again, it'll be really interesting to see if he can rediscover the old Lewis magic."
Hamilton has proven already, though, that he still very much has what it takes. He did that last year as he drove a "diva" of an F1 car - the first Mercedes-built machine to fail to win a race in more than a decade - to third place in the drivers' championship.
The balance of power between the teams behind Red Bull changed regularly throughout the campaign, but rarely did Mercedes look to have a car clearly quicker than the likes of Ferrari, McLaren and Aston Martin. And each of those teams also had their own drivers doing the business, from 42-year-young Fernando Alonso to the ever-present threat of Lando Norris.
Yet, by the end of the year - even despite a wretched couple of races to finish the season - Hamilton was ahead of them all. And comfortably. What more evidence do we need that the seven-time world champion very much remains capable of getting the absolute best out of any car he is given?
It was a message to Verstappen - 'as soon as I get a quick enough car, I'm going to be a problem for you'. And it was a message to those doubters of his - 'just because my team has gone downhill, don't for a second believe that I have too'.