The world champion disappeared from the public spotlight after losing the championship last year following the FIA’s controversial handling of a late race safety car restart at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Hamilton made no public comments about what happened in Abu Dhabi, as his Mercedes boss Toto Wolff made clear he was ‘disillusioned’ with everything that had happened.

That prompted concerns that Hamilton could elect to walk away from F1 after feeling that the sport had lost credibility because of what happened.

But appearing for the first time at the launch of the new Mercedes W13 at Silverstone on Friday, Hamilton explained that, while he needed to get away from everything for a while, he quickly concluded that he would come back in a fighting mood.

“I never, ever said that I was

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