Lewis Hamilton’s misery is unrelenting in his latest horror show, writes JONATHAN McEVOY as fired up Max Verstappen roars to Qatar GP win

He was a great fairy tale writer, but is now trapped in his own horror story. Lewis Hamilton is so tormented that he begged to withdraw from the Qatar Grand Prix.

What’s going on with the seven-time world champion?

Is it old age, or him fighting a scorned Mercedes team that is angry with him for joining Ferrari next season and gently favoring George Russell, their future?

Whatever the reason for the decline – and boss Toto Wolff dismissed the conspiracy theory peddlers as ‘crazies’ – this was another night of pain and a puncture in Hamilton’s penultimate race as Silver Arrow.

Afterwards, the 39-year-old was calm as he conducted his media interviews, but he looked tired behind the half-smile.

As philosophically as he could muster, he said, “It didn’t go great, but these things happen.” Yes, more often than before in his eighteen-season career.

He sits seventh in the standings, 24 points behind Russell, who is on the verge of beating his more illustrious teammate in two of their three seasons together.

It all got off to a false start for Hamilton, as rushed as he was to continue in Doha. He was off the line early, anticipating his moment to launch. He then let off the gas for a moment before continuing. In no time he dropped from sixth to ninth place. He was subsequently given a five-second time penalty for his offence.

He was mired in treacle for the entire race and was won by a productively angry Max Verstappen, making light of his demotion of one place from pole on Saturday evening. The newly crowned world champion was furious and he is not a man to upset you, as he demonstrated with typical muscularity as the lights went out to take the lead every lap.

We return to the story of the greatest driver of that time after returning to the trials and tribulations of the star performer of the previous half-generation. It’s a litany of disappointments that almost makes you want to cover your eyes.

Hamilton’s lap times were far behind those of his teammate Russell, sometimes by a second. The other seven drivers in the top four teams were somehow much faster.

Hamilton’s frustrations grew over the radio. “Mid 25,” he exclaimed when told of his rivals’ pace. “That’s one second faster.”

The annoyance grew. ‘Is the car broken? Or just…’

When you’re down, you’re down. And Hamilton rightly suffered a flat tire. Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas caught the wing mirror of Alex Albon’s Williams, which had been on the asphalt for about eight laps. (Why on earth wasn’t it cleaned up?).

The rubble shattered into smithereens. Hamilton apparently drove over shards, or was it a sharp curb? No one knew for sure last night. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz suffered the same fate as the tires burst.

Hamilton went into the pits and emerged a lap back. A safety car, prompted by the punctures, and a subsequent virtual safety car that evolved into a safety car, allowed him to catch up somewhat.

“The car’s in disarray, mate,” Hamilton complained, unrelenting in his misery. He was 12th at this stage. The safety car withdrew and he ceded a place to Bottas and then to RB’s Yuki Tsunoda.

Even more pain, if you can believe it. Hamilton was given a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane with ten laps to go. It was equivalent to a week in prison for driving 20mph in one of Sadiq Khan’s absurd 20mph zones.

On an industrial level he was now fed up. “Take the car out of commission, take the car out of commission,” he begged. Race engineer Peter Bonnington replied: ‘Negative.’

Bonnington’s calculation included the fact that Hamilton would have been sanctioned in the last race of the season in Abu Dhabi next week for avoiding punishment. He served it.

Hamilton finished 12th of the 14 finishers and 52 seconds behind Verstappen. Questions about its future competitiveness remain unabated.

Just like rumors online about a conspiracy against him. Wolff did not choke on the suggestions, but rather laughed.

“I never read the comments,” the Austrian said. “I just heard about this nonsense. We can talk at length about the toxic nature of social media, but you hide behind the screen, open an account and make these comments.

‘Who has the time to comment?

‘We love our fans. They contribute. But others believe they have to come up with some crazy, made-up plots.

‘I don’t care either way. They’re idiots. They don’t know anything about it and haven’t set foot in a racing car yet, maybe not even in a normal car.

‘No one reads what they write. They write it for themselves and a few other crazy people they want to talk to.’

Hamilton’s mood changes from weekend to weekend. You feel like he needs to get himself together between races to muster up enough energy and positivity to go again.

His release comes after the last Mercedes hurray this Sunday. Then it’s off to Maranello, and the next set of imponderables.

Putting Hamilton’s plight aside, it should be pointed out that the stewards hung judges. Lando Norris was an even more blatant victim of their lack of leniency than Hamilton. He was given a 10-second stop-go penalty while in second for not slowing down under yellow flags.

That sent him to the back – 15 seconds behind the tail – until Hamilton served his penalty.

Charles Leclerc finished a close second for Ferrari, six seconds behind Verstappen and one place ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri. With the other red car of Sainz sixth and Norris tenth, the battle for the constructors’ championship goes to the extreme. McLaren leads Ferrari by 21 points.

It was a bad day for Mercedes. Russell, who was third, finished fourth after a failed stop cost him seven seconds. He had started on pole, but was passed by Verstappen in the first corner.

There was a lot of bad blood in that move. Verstappen was furious that Russell – as the Dutchman claims – had campaigned against him in the stewards’ room and cost him the pole he had won on the track.

The stewards ruled that Verstappen had driven ‘unnecessarily slowly’ on the racing line two corners before their final flying laps.

The world champion’s slow start caused Russell to run across the gravel, potentially damaging his car and costing him time. The Briton qualified second before he was hit and Verstappen crashed to the ground at 1am local time, three hours after the incident.

When Verstappen won, his race engineer ‘GP’ came over the radio dripping with sarcasm: ‘You didn’t drive unnecessarily slowly today.’

That can’t be said of every legendary champion.