It always blows my mind how fast people are swinging in terms of performance assessment.
After the first few races Hamilton needed to retire since he was thrashed by Russell. After that, Russell was overrated since Hamilton started beating him and Russell was no longer the right choice for Mercedes as Hamilton’s successor. And now Russell won and Hamilton’s legacy might be at risk yet again.
On balance, Hamilton has been the quicker of the two drivers this season, winning the qualifying battle and it’s still close in head to head regarding races, even when not factoring in Hamilton’s bad luck with safety cars on numerous occasions which Russell benefitted from in all of those cases.
AMuS is now reporting that Hamilton indeed had floor damage worth 0.2 seconds in Brazil after Verstappens deliberate take-out attempt. Without that, he would most likely have been in Russell’s DRS zone in the last few laps, and the race would likely have turned out quite differently. None of these conversations would then even take place.
With Russell he has a proper fight on his hands, but will most likely prevail as he always has over time against his team mates. His team mate battles are actually what sets him apart from many other great drivers in the sense that he has had some very good ones, two world champions which he beat on balance, and a third one if you count Rosberg. That’s more than someone like Schumacher for example who will always have the contracted no 2 driver asterix with his records. Fighting your team mate on equal grounds will always serve your sporting legacy extremely well as long as you come out on top more often than not. And that is what Hamilton is doing.