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Lewis Hamilton looked back to a picture of himself standing alongside Nico Rosberg during pre-season testing in Jerez in 2013. The Briton recalled the excitement he felt going into the testing session due to it being the first time he sat behind the wheel of a Mercedes F1 car.
In a social media video posted on the official YouTube page of Petronas Motorsport, Hamilton reminisced about his first-ever test drive for the Mercedes F1 team in 2013. The then one-time world champion talked about his mindset going into the testing session and highlighted the expectations the team had for him. He said:
“This is Jerez 2013 at the first test when I joined this team. I remember the day actually, the excitement of getting to drive the car for the first time.”
At the time, the German team wasn't the giant of F1 we currently know it as, having placed only fifth in the constructors' championship at the end of 2012. Lewis Hamilton made the switch to Mercedes after driving for McLaren since his debut in 2007, replacing the great Michael Schumacher, who was set to retire at the end of the 2012 season. The now 36-year-old driver was brought in to try and grow the team and help them fight for title wins. He said of the move:
“The team weren't competing at the front at the time. My goal was to come and work with them and help them to eventually win a world championship. And then we won the championship the next year.”
Mercedes won their first constructors' title in 2014 and have never looked back, winning it every subsequent year since then.
Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg had bitter rivalry within Mercedes
Despite winning the constructors' championship in 2016, it wasn't all hunky-dory inside the Mercedes garage, as Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton competed for the drivers' title. An extremely competent car coupled with two of the best drivers on the grid saw frequent friction between them.
The most infamous instance of friction between the two was the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, which saw both drivers take each other out in a first-lap collision. Hamilton and Rosberg were both heard blaming the other on team radio following the collision.
Team principal Toto Wolff responded diplomatically, claiming it was incorrect to blame either party. He said:
"When we looked at the incident, and there are people in the team with racing experience and an opinion, the opinion differed between all of us. What I take home is that it was an incident that could've been avoided by both sides. It's so difficult to really attribute percentages of blame."
Nico Rosberg did however manage to outperform the Briton and won the championship in the last race in Abu Dhabi. The driver has since retired from the sport.
