F1 | Hamilton, is it a humiliation to take from Russell? Few races to avoid it…

There is a seven-time world champion, dominator for years far and wide, imperious and authoritative until a sporting yesterday that suddenly already seems to fade to the voice "past", who has six races to avoid a disgrace that it would be quite heavy.

Lewis Hamilton is thirty-five points behind his teammate George Russell in the standings, a budding talent who drives the Mercedes, taming and roughing it as if he has known it for years, and is losing the comparison with a very young teammate.

Hamilton, certainly at the end of his career compared to the compatriot with whom he shares the garage of the former Anglo-German army, has already lost comparisons in his career with his team mates. Let's think about Button or the evidently bloodier one with Rosberg, which cost him the 2016 world title.

It would therefore not be an absolute novelty, but in this case it would be something absolutely new, yes. Because Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg were drivers with more or equal seniority, or in any case of the same generation; there was no generational challenge, there were no worries about the passing of time, there was no merciless and inevitable progress of the twilight, of the end that in any context, for any thing, fact, living being, sooner or later he arrives.

Russell is the impertinent, brash, very fast, complex young man who is somehow "downsizing" Hamilton. Certainly not in a "historical" sense. Lewis remains a legend, one of the few who can aspire to the symbolic title of GOAT of the top category, after all he won 103 GPs, it's almost immoral.

But the present speaks of a King a little closer to abdication, a little more dethroned in a team that in recent years was a sort of emanation of him; everything revolved around Hamilton, from the successes on the track, to the image outside, to the managers, and ending with the very faithful and loyal wingman Bottas.

Today, however, this is no longer the case, which is why Hamilton should use all his class, his energy, his strength - still decisive, just look at the GPs in France, Hungary and England - to respond to the eager young prince George. Who is slowly, with elegance and politeness, taking the Mercedes. Russell is constant, bordering on exhaustion for his opponents, he is fast and above all he runs with the attitude and malice of someone who has no awe for the ranks of his teammate.

In Holland, for example, George made a point of changing tires under the safety car, he read the race as best he could and "led" the team, with frightening determination and diabolical resolve. He mercilessly overtook Hamilton and took second place. Something like this had never been seen at Mercedes in previous years. Something has probably already changed in the balance of a team that is no longer Hamilton-centric. And all this will not please Lewis, who still has a few races to turn the situation around.

Antonino Rendina