Damon Hill can remember the motivation dwindling, his desire to get behind the wheel of a Formula One car decreasing race by race.
“After a while, you've had your fill of driving F1 cars, as amazing as that might seem,” the 1996 world champion tells Standard Sport on walking away from the sport three years later.
Behind the wheel of a Jordan, which admittedly gave him a solitary grand prix victory, rather than the championship-winning Williams, he was no longer regularly vying to be first past the chequered flag.
Hill is casting his mind back to draw parallels with Lewis Hamilton. The seven-time world champion's winter testing last week, while not as alarming as a year ago, suggested Mercedes still have work to do to claw their way back to the front of the grid. Should that not come imminently, Hill has questioned Hamilton's future in the sport much beyond 2023.
“Lewis will respond to opportunity,” says Hill, now a Sky Sports F1 pundit. “If the opportunity diminishes rather than increases, then it will be more difficult for him to deliver those stellar performances.
“He's someone who is inspired by an opportunity to win. An opportunity to come fifth is not really sufficient motivation for Lewis. Given his incredible record, he may well want to ask, 'Why do I need to keep doing this?' if there's no sign of the summit.”
Hamilton came within a whisker of a record eighth world title at the end of a nail-biting 2021 season which went down to the final lap of the final race in Abu Dhabi before being denied by Max Verstappen.
And Hill suggests: “That eighth world title was in his grasp and then it was denied him. That's the only reason he came back and carried on: the hope of getting that eighth title. I think that is his only motivation. I don't think he just wants to race.
“At 37, he's still got some more seasons, but he's not got 10 years ahead of him. It's going to be one or two. But when you've had that many years in Formula One, to pull your socks up and fight for fourth place, it gets a little bit less appealing.”
Hamilton's team-mate George Russell has already discounted the prospect of Mercedes battling for a win at this weekend's season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. Red Bull and Verstappen will once again be favourites, having looked quick and reliable throughout three days of testing last week at the same Sakhir track. And Hill is not looking much beyond the Dutchman for this year's title.
“We might be doing Mercedes a disservice, but they gave the impression Red Bull seem to have the high ground at the moment,” he says. “The order up front will be very much as it was last year. As for Mercedes, they got off on the wrong foot last year. They can't afford another year like last year."
Twenty-seven years on from his own world title, Hill predicts that Ferrari, rather than Mercedes, will be the best of the rest behind Red Bull, the cars of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz looking quick and consistent in testing.
But Hill warns: “Their weakness last season was their performances at races, not the car so much. It made you scratch your head and think, 'How are they ever going to win a championship if they behave like this?’.”
While quick to back Fred Vasseur's arrival as team principal, he says that Ferrari were wrong to axe Mattia Binotto entirely, after more than a quarter of a century with the team.
“I'm upset to lose Binotto," notes Hill. “I think he laid the foundations for the car to be in contention. Why would you lose somebody as talented as that and as dedicated to Ferrari? What did he do that he couldn't be kept on in some capacity, given the talent that he's got? But that's Ferrari.”
