Lewis Hamilton admits he is struggling with troublesome back

Lewis Hamilton admits he needs ‘some recovering and hard work’ to overcome a back problem following the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. 

The Brit looked to be in some pain after the race in Baku, as he had to be helped out of his car by Mercedes staff. 

Lewis Hamilton has given an update on the extent of his back injury

The 37-year-old was seen holding his lower back as he walked away from his vehicle, and even in interviews with media later on his hand remained behind him.

‘There were a lot of moments when I didn’t know whether I was going to make it and if I was going to be able to keep the car on track,’ said Hamilton after the race.

‘That was the most painful and toughest race I have experienced.

‘I was just holding and biting down on my teeth due to the pain. The adrenaline helped, but I cannot express the pain that you experience, particularly on the straight here. I was just praying for it to end.’

And confirming the extent of the pain on Sunday night, Hamilton took to Instagram to deliver a message to his followers. 

‘Seeing online that a lot of people are concerned about me with how awful it looked out there,’ he wrote. 

The 37-year-old could be seen being helped out of his Mercedes vehicle after Sunday’s race

‘It means so much that so many of you are sending love. I’ll be honest It’s [sic] looks terrible and feels 100 times worse.

‘Definitely some recovering and hard work with the team to do before Montreal to overcome this hurdle. Feeling better already, though, and motivated my [sic] to keep pushing. See you next week.’ 

Hamilton, the seven-time world champion, finished fourth after starting seventh on the grid, but there is a real danger that he will be unable to compete in Canada next weekend. 

‘He is really bad,’ said his team boss Toto Wolff after the race. ‘You can see this is not muscular anymore. It goes properly into the spine and it can have some consequences.

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The seven-time world champion was still holding his back while he was speaking to media

His Mercedes car is suffering from ‘porpoising’, where it bounces on its suspension

‘The solution could be to have someone on reserve, which we anyway have at every race.’

Porpoising – a new phenomenon in cars for the 2022 season which sees them bounce on their suspension at high speed – has caused issues for a number of F1 drivers this season, including Hamilton. 

The Mercedes driver has so far failed to launch any meaningful bid for an eighth world championship, and currently sits sixth in the driver standings, 88 points behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.