Lewis Hamilton will be 'much wiser' after dealing with 'confusion' at Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton's disastrous start to the F1 season will make him "wiser", according to former Dutch driver Jan Lammers, who has also backed the British icon to "get back up to speed." Hamilton is coming off the back of a miserable weekend at Imola, where he exited in Q2 on Friday, and was spotted afterwards having a heated discussion with Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.

It meant he started the Saturday Sprint Race in 13th, and made no impression as he slipped back a place in the 21-lap dash. He would eventually finish 13th in Sunday's Grand Prix, with his difficult weekend compounded by being lapped by rival Max Verstappen.

The seven-time world champion has racked up just 28 points from four races so far, a full 58 off leader Charles Leclerc, and lies seventh in the standings. He has already publicly written off his chances of challenging for the title, and received a radio apology from Wolff after his latest race for being given an "undriveable" car.

New team-mate George Russell though, has endured the same difficulties. His started the race 11th in Imola, but eventually rose to fourth to take his own season total to 49 points - behind Leclerc, Verstappen, and Sergio Perez.

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But Lammers, who started 23 F1 races having debuted at the Argentina Grand prix in 1979, told NOS Studio Sport he thinks the current 'confusion' at Mercedes will eventually benefit Hamilton: "For Lewis, this is just darn hard, he hasn't been used to all this for seven years," he said.

"This also causes some confusion for him. But without confusion you don't get wiser, so I think at the end of the year we will see a much wiser Hamilton. He will also get back