Jenson Button sees no reason why Lewis Hamilton can't return to the front of the grid, if he has the right car and the mental will to do so.
For the first year since his first championship winning campaign with Mercedes in 2014, Hamilton is constrained to a secondary role behind his Red Bull and Ferrari rivals, weighed down by the current limitations of his car.
The seven-time world has also been unlucky on several occasions this season, with circumstances and incidents also putting a burden on his results.
However, his Mercedes teammate George Russell has undeniably coped better with the vagaries and porpoising issues of the Brackley squad's W13, allowing the young gun to outscore his elder.
Button sees the latter's outperformance as a consequence of each driver's recent history.
"I think the big shift for Lewis is he’s driving a car that isn’t competitive in his world," explained Button recently on The Chris Evans Show on Virgin Radio.
"He’s been fighting for the World Championship since 2014 and his team-mate has come, young upstart George Russell, and he’s been competitive.
"Because George is driving a car that’s actually better than he was used to [at Williams], it’s given him confidence and he can push a bit harder.
"Whereas Lewis has probably not got so much confidence in the car to be able to extract the maximum out of it.
"And when you’ve had a few bad races, it hurts mentally. This is a mental sport. It’s not just physical."
Button is convinced that with the right equipment beneath him, Hamilton will return to the front, assuming he wants to.
"Lewis, as we all know, is one of the best in the world, if not the best in the world at driving a Formula 1 car," added the 2009 F1 World Champion.
"He will be competitive again – if he wants to be. That’s the thing. Maybe he thinks his career is over and he wants to go and do something else. Who knows?
"But Lewis, if he has a car that’s good enough to win, he will win races."
Hamilton's current contract with Mercedes runs until the end of 2023, and so far the Briton has given no indication that he could throw in the towel early.
"Let’s take this season – I probably won’t win the title, but I feel the same pleasure in racing as when I started," he told Italy's Corriere della Sera in Monaco.
"Why should I stop? Maybe one day I will not be able to take the pressure anymore, I’ll be tired, but that day has not yet come."
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