Life hasn’t always been kind in the premier class for Lewis Hamilton. However, the 2022 season was the most difficult the seven-time world champion has ever endured. The entire Mercedes team struggled with the bouncing W13 as they lagged behind the frontrunners, Red Bull and Ferrari. However, heading into the 2023 season, the seven-time world champion is putting his faith into the evolved W13, the W14. Not only putting his faith in W14, but the Brit also discredited the teams that “copied” the Red Bull design from 2022.

Speaking to the media at the launch of W14 as quoted by Planet F1, Hamilton shamed the team for lacking originality. Three teams, namely, Williams, Aston Martin, and McLaren copied the RB18’s design. Seeing how the RB18 was the most dominating car in 2022, some would agree with these tactics. However, Hamilton is not one of them.

In the W14 press conference, Hamilton shared his thoughts on his ideology. “Of course, you can see that some of the cars are approaching what a Red Bull might look like,” he said. “Perhaps with the exception of Ferrari.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever been a team that copied other people. We’ve always had our own minds and have always been a team that’s incredibly creative and innovative and likes to do it our way. And I think that’s worked in the past,” he added.

Read More: Mercedes Encouraged to Dump Lewis Hamilton for F1 Prodigy With 0 Wins: “Number 1 Pick”

We often witness such power struggles among the teams from time to time. Mercedes, Ferrari, and even Audi ganged up on Red Bull recently. However, copying a team’s car design is not the Mercedes way.

In fact, the team, including Hamilton, still has faith in the core design of W13.

Lewis Hamilton has full faith in Mercedes and its innovative design

The zerepod design raised a lot of eyebrows at the start of 2022. However, the design turned out to be hugely unsuccessful. Despite the failure of W13, Mercedes has not completely revamped the design for W14. They’ve stuck with the core design with changes. Worrying aspect for some, but Hamilton has “faith”.

He expressed, “Last year we arrived and thought ‘damn, that was fast’ but it wasn’t, not with all the problems we had.”

However, he added, “And then we come into a new season with a car that looks similar in many ways, because some elements are really difficult to change but you just have to have faith in it the engineers have, and I have.”

WATCH THIS STORY: Lewis Hamilton Sounds Off the Alarm Bells for Mercedes F1

All the faith in the world will count for none if the W14 cannot perform on the track. However, for Hamilton’s sake, let’s hope it does!