Herbert: Hamilton is a great leader at Merc | Russell pairing is 'powerful'

Johnny Herbert has praised Lewis Hamilton's leadership within Mercedes as the seven-time World Champion looks to inspire his team after a difficult start to the 2022 Formula One season.

Despite the issues that the Silver Arrows have been facing on the track, what has been maintained within Mercedes is that Hamilton continues to 'inspire' his team as they work towards improvements on their W13 car, his team-mate George Russell describing him as the 'captain'.

While the Mercedes man believes himself to be out of the world championship, his passion to get the best results for those working around him continues to be his main motivation in 2022.

For Herbert, such leadership abilities have been Hamilton's most consistent feature as a driver, dating back to him joining McLaren in 2007.

"I think what Lewis has always been really good at doing is being a leader," said Herbert.

"I think that first kicked off when he joined McLaren with Fernando Alonso and how he was able to develop himself and mould himself within the team and that is exactly what he has been able to do at Mercedes.

"Motivation within the team, it is a massive and important thing for the driver to get the most out of the personnel, especially in the situation they find themselves in at the moment.

"So he will be working very, very hard with his engineers, with the designers, to try and work out exactly what is going wrong because I think they know they have fundamentally got a good car but until they can get the right set-up for the car, it is going to be a lot of hard work.

"But that is where he is going to be really inspiring within the team because that is something that he is still very, very driven to do - to get the best out of himself but out of the team