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ABU DHABI -- Lewis Hamilton ranks his 2022 season among the worst three of his career, but says he is not overly concerned about missing out on a race victory this year. The seven-time champion recorded his worst ever position in the driver standings after finishing sixth, 35 points adrift of teammate George Russell. This year's Mercedes car, which won the Brazilian Grand Prix in the hands of Russell, struggled for performance from the opening round of the season and only looked genuinely competitive at a handful of races. The 2022 season was also the first of Hamilton's 16-year career in which he failed to win a grand prix. Despite the statistics, Hamilton said the 2011 season, in which he broke up with his long-term girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger and fell out with his father Anthony, who had been managing his career to that point, was worse. "I think 2011 was probably the hardest year I had, just in terms of life," he said. "This year is not the greatest, it is up there with probably the top three of the worst seasons, but it's been a much stronger year in terms of myself, in terms of how it worked with the team, how we've all stayed united. So I think there's been lots of pluses." Asked if he was upset to break his record of winning a race every season, Hamilton added: "Honestly, it would have been nice to have a win, but one win is not really enough is it? "So I feel like this year, when we got our first fifth, it felt like a win. When we got our first fourth, it felt like a win. "When we got our first podium, it felt like a win and those seconds felt like as if we really achieved something, so I'll just hold on to those."
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