However his comments were made before the Bahrain GP weekend unfolded. Testing had given Hamilton and his Mercedes team some indication that there was still work to do, but the real story had to wait for qualifying and the race – and the answers were not good.

After a difficult Sunday evening Hamilton tried to put on a brave face and see the positives – at least porpoising was gone and he wasn’t being shaken to bits, and he had a little fight with his old pal Fernando Alonso.

“I just enjoyed it, I love driving and it wasn’t bouncing, my brain is intact,” he said. “All my fillings, my teeth, are still in my mouth, I don’t have any pains in the back. So I just generally enjoyed the drive.

“And I enjoyed that I managed to have a couple of battles, and it was close, but not quite there. I’ve had many cars like this, particularly back in the McLaren days. I don’t know when or how we’re going to do it in terms of turning it around. But it’s going to have to happen.”

He added: “We have just got a lot of work to do. We have just got to add downforce to the car, we’re lacking a lot of downforce.

“That is really where the time will come. As soon as we put more load on the rear and the front we’ll pick up that pace.”

Hamilton has always been a team player, and we win as a team, lose as a team, has long been his mantra.

However there were signs of frustration that the W14 didn’t represent the step that he wanted and needed as he slipped into using the word “they” as a catch-all for the engineering team.

“Last year, there were things I told them, I said the issues that are with the car,” he explained. “I’ve driven so many cars in my life. So I know what a car needs, I know what a car doesn’t need.

“And I think it’s really about accountability. It’s about owning up and saying, yeah, you know what? We didn’t listen to you. It’s not where it used to be. And we’ve got to work.

“We’ve got to look into the balance through the corners. Look at all the weak points and just huddle up as a team. That’s what we do.

“We’re still multi World Champions. They haven’t got it right this time, they didn’t get it right last year, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get it right moving forwards.”

Bahrain was a sample of one, and Mercedes could well be more competitive in upcoming races.

However the fact that over the weekend Wolff made it clear that it’s time for the team to change its aero concept was not a good sign – that will not be the work of a moment, and the task made even harder in the context of the cost cap. Nobody can afford to create a full B-spec car at mid-season.

This time around the timescale is different, and Wolff should have plenty of warning of Hamilton’s intentions. But where will he look for a replacement?

When I asked him after the difficult Bahrain race if he had a Plan B he ducked the question and focused on improving the W14.

“As much as I’m being transparent as to how we need to turn the car around, it is not the point to talk about the driver situation in 2024,” he said. “That is far too early.

“We need to all push in the same direction, the drivers, the engineers, all of us management, rather than throwing in the towel. We are not doing that, we have never done that, and we will not do it.”

 

Who would replace Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes?

Mercedes does have access to Mick Schumacher, currently kicking his heels as a reserve driver.

He could indeed be a Plan B, and would obviously be acceptable in marketing terms to the bosses in Stuttgart. But having been rejected by Haas is he really the man for the job, even on a one-year basis while the team considers its longer-term options?

Logic suggests that Wolff would go out onto the open market in search of a replacement. The problem is that the truly desirable candidates are tied up for 2024, including Esteban Ocon, the man who Mercedes has long regarded as a future race driver.

Of course contracts are always up for discussion, as we saw last year when Alpine paid a substantial sum to free Pierre Gasly from his Red Bull ties.

You could argue too that without Hamilton on the payroll Mercedes will have a tidy budget with which to pursue a candidate. But would any of the stars that the team would really want be for sale at any price? And in any case how attractive would Mercedes look at the moment to say, a Charles Leclerc or Lando Norris or Carlos Sainz?

It’s an extraordinary situation given that not so long ago Wolff had to offload Bottas to make way for George Russell.

Of course it all becomes academic should Hamilton agree in the coming months to stay on. Heading into 2025 a lot of big names will be out of contract, and potentially available – and it will be interesting to see how it all pans out.