Lewis Hamilton: F1 star returns to social media weeks before new season

Lewis Hamilton has returned to the public eye for the first time in two months following the controversial end to last year's world championship.

Hamilton has not spoken since losing out on a record eighth world title to Red Bull's Max Verstappen in last December's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The Mercedes driver posted on Twitter saying: «I've been gone. Now I'm back.»

There is doubt over Hamilton's return to Formula 1 this season having lost faith in the sport's governing body.

Hamilton's message, accompanied by a picture of the 37-year-old at the Grand Canyon wearing typically flamboyant trousers, was preceded on Saturday by a similarly cryptic message from his Mercedes team.

Mercedes posted a picture of Hamilton posing in his race overalls and holding his crash helmet, accompanied by the words: «Keep rising.»

After Hamilton's own message, Mercedes posted a further tweet. Accompanied by a picture of the words «He is back» trending on Twitter, the team wrote: «That's right.»

Hamilton's re-appearance after nearly two months of silence comes at the start of what could be a pivotal week for the Briton.

All the drivers are expected to meet this week with representatives of governing body the FIA to discuss the Abu Dhabi race, their feelings about what happened and the various problems that arose last season. A number of them expressed discomfort after the race about the way it had been handled.

Race director Michael Masi's errors in Abu Dhabi were merely the biggest and latest of a series of controversies through 2021 to do with the consistency of application of the rules.

Some of the most high-profile involved Verstappen's driving in his many on-track tussles with Hamilton.

A number of drivers did not understand why Verstappen was not