Paddy Lowe feels that Mercedes' eighth consecutive constructors' title has been snowed under in the controversy of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and should have been bigger news.

The title fight between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton came down to the last lap at the Yas Marina Circuit in 2021, as did the battle between Red Bull and Mercedes for the constructors' title. While Verstappen passed Hamilton on the last lap and took the drivers' title under controversial circumstances, Mercedes secured the constructors' title for an eighth consecutive season.

Lowe acknowledged to PlanetF1.com that Formula 1 is a risky sport and he was, therefore "quite happy" that Verstappen took the title for the first time in 2021. Nevertheless, the Briton feels that more attention should have been paid to his former team's success in the constructors' standings.
Mercedes dropped to third place in the team standings after the large-scale regulations changes for 2022, whereas Red Bull and Ferrari left Hamilton far behind for most of the season. George Russell's victory in Brazil was the only time a Mercedes won a race.

Difficult process

"No, not at all," the former Mercedes boss told me when asked if he doubted the team would recover from the difficult start in 2022. For instance, he called it a difficult process and especially the complexity of the current cars or the speed at which you can develop them. "Especially fundamental aspects of them, within the season, it is very, very difficult."

Lowe points out that you have to keep developing things and there is definitely frustration when you know something is wrong but it cannot be fixed so quickly and they still had a great season. "There’s absolutely no reason to feel disappointed by what they’ve achieved – it’s got to stop sometime, hasn’t it? And they stopped well beyond anyone else’s high watermark there. So you know, all credit to the team."

Buried

The Brit concludes that the fact that everything revolved around the driver and the controversy made him a bit angry. He calls achieving eight constructors' championships incredible. "That far eclipses any single Drivers’ Championship by whether it was Lewis or Max in the one year, an eighth consecutive Constructors’, that should have been massive news and it really got buried, which I thought was really terrible."