Seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton, has expressed that his chances of winning the title this season are over after finishing P13 at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, which took place over the weekend. The day before, he finished P12 at the Sprint. This is Hamilton’s poorest result so far this season, and he has now dropped to 7th place on the Driver Standings.

Hamilton has been complaining about the W13 even before the season started, saying that work needs to be done on the car if Mercedes hopes to chase the title this season. But it seems like the world did not understand what Hamilton meant when it made that statement. Now, these past races have shown what he meant.

While Hamilton had a bad Sunday, his arch-rival, Max Verstappen, had his best yet as he won his first race of the season. It was a very good day for Red Bull as their other driver Sergio Perez came second. Verstappen’s weekend was one of the best in his career. He won pole position on Friday, won the Sprint on Saturday, then finished first on Sunday, winning driver of the Day, and was named the fastest lap winner. This is a big improvement from not finishing the race at the Australian GP. He has now also moved up to number two on the Driver Standings. Red Bull has also moved to second place on the Team Standings, with Mercedes at third place.

After the race, a frustrated Hamilton noted that it was “a weekend to forget.” He also said that he was not competing for the title anymore: “I’m out of it, for sure. There’s no question about that, but I’ll still keep working as hard as I can to try and somehow pull it back together somehow.”

Ferrari also had a bad day on Sunday after Charles Leclerc, who dominates the leaderboard, suffered a crash which caused him to finish sixth after being positioned to finish third. Their second driver, Carlos Sainz, did not gain any points. This caused the team’s lead on both leaderboards to reduce.

Written by: Leon Osamor