Formula 1 fans will be treated to "the best Lewis Hamilton yet", former champion Jacques Villeneuve has predicted.
It has been a difficult year for the Brit amid Mercedes' struggles for results with a poorly-performing car. Hamilton finished the season without a race victory for the first time since he made his F1 debut – though team-mate George Russell did manage to deliver one victory for the Silver Arrows in Brazil.
While the 2021 title battle between Hamilton and Max Verstappen went down to the wire, it was much more of a formality for the Dutchman this time around with little competition for the championship. "It's not been a great championship so much, as Max Verstappen won that very early on," wrote Villeneuve in his Formule1.nl column.
"Normally when that happens the championship sputters out like a dying candle, but I had a good time. While Brazil might have been the right finale in terms of entertainment, the setting in Abu Dhabi is more suitable for the closing parties after a long season."
Looking ahead to next year, the 1997 world champion made the confident prediction that Hamilton will play a much bigger role in the title race. He even went as far as to suggest fans may see the seven-time world champion at his very best – a tall order, considering his previous achievements.
"Next year I expect a lot from Lewis Hamilton, we are going to see the best Lewis yet," Villeneuve added. "He ended the season without a pole position or a victory, that will have done something to him, I think.
"And then things will start to get interesting – Mercedes has been able to improve. We saw that in Brazil. In the opening phase of the [Abu Dhabi] race, Lewis rightly had to give back that spot, and he struggled a bit on the mediums.
"Once he changed to the hard tyre, he really flew down the track. It's a shame for him that his race ended the way it did, with the first mechanical breakdown this season." Hamilton was forced to pull up in the pits with just a few laps remaining due to a hydraulics failure.
Referring to the W13 car which has caused so many problems for Mercedes this year, the Brit said: "I don't ever plan to drive this one again – it won't be one of the ones I request to have in my contract."
