“We’ll make it”: Lewis Hamilton’s virtual motivation to Mercedes in 2021. There is a painful turning point in Lewis Hamilton's career: the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

There is a painful turning point in Lewis Hamilton’s career: the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Everyone has their own opinion about what happened, but it’s quite clear that the FIA played some dirty tricks, coming off a season that was poorly managed and perhaps overly focused on spectacle. A wound that still bleeds, although the driver admits it little, since with just a few laps to go, it seemed he already had his hands on that eighth World Championship, driving with a concentration and confidence that had made his recent races almost hypnotic.

Indeed, the Mercedes driver was coming off three consecutive wins on tracks that weren’t particularly favorable, where he had pulled out all the talent to close the gap to Max Verstappen, dragging the whole team with him. And speaking on the Beyond The Grid podcast, Andrew Shovlin, the long-time Brackley engineer, revealed the name of a WhatsApp group created by Lewis Hamilton to motivate his team: “Before the last four races of 2021, I found myself in a chat titled ‘We’ll Make It.’ When I saw that Lewis had created it, I thought it really wasn’t over, that we were called to win. And if he believed we could do it, we would support him. He has such a strong mindset that makes dreams come true. That was the turning point. The dedication, the effort, the attention to detail he put in was incredible. We all know what happened in Abu Dhabi, and no one can be satisfied with the outcome, but aside from that, we had achieved all the goals we had set. The car was in the right window, always fast. Then there were events beyond our control, but it’s precisely in those moments that Lewis makes the difference.”