Red Bull broke Formula 1's budget cap last season and Lewis Hamilton thought he had buried the ghosts of Abu Dhabi.
Losing a record eighth world title after an official freestyled with the rules was definitely spirit-breaking, or soul-crushing.
He admits that the discovery of his rivals from 2021, against whom he fought one of the bitterest title battles in F1 history, brought up a bit of emotion.
It's like another bit of a kick when it comes back up, because you kind of buried it and moved on. That bought it all back to it's previous state. It was a case of just suppressing it and moving forward.
In a small group interview at the United States Grand Prix, Hamilton talks to the British Broadcasting Corporation. He is talking about a lot of topics, including Mercedes' difficult year and his future.
Hamilton tends to ignore questions about Abu Dhabi and its aftermath in order to focus on the task at hand.
It is the context for the most difficult season Hamilton has had in 10 years, in an uncompetitive Mercedes car that he admitted on Sunday looks set to leave him without a win in a season for the first time in his career.
Hamilton felt like he was about to complete a remarkable comeback at the end of the race.
He needed to win the final four races to overtake Max Verstappen and win the title.
He dominated in Abu Dhabi until a late safety-car period after a spectacular victory in Brazil.
The race director ignored the correct procedure and improvised after being pressured by Red Bull to restart the race. The title was wrenched from Hamilton's grasp in one frenetic final lap after he was left powerless on old tires.
Hamilton went missing for two months trying to figure out what had happened. He was thinking about the sport he loved and how to find motivation again when he came back.
He thinks about the period with the benefit of nearly a year's hindsight. I am not going to give up.
Even though there are so many people you rely on, it was still breaking to believe that the sport would do that. It is expected that the job would be done well.
An outcome of a world championship which so many people have worked so hard for would come out wrong.
It was the only thing. My lack of love for working with my team or racing cars was not the reason.
I was wondering if it was possible to lose a championship through wrongdoing.
The best part of the healing was spending time with my family. I just spent all of my time with my nephew and niece, building snowmen and just being with them. I was able to bounce back. I would have been in a hole if I hadn't been with them.
It wasn't plain sailing even before he tried the Mercedes car for the first time.
It was difficult to get back into training. You can't just say, "OK, right, motivation's there" It took me a little while to get back in.
He came back with a fighting mentality because the plan was to come back stronger. We had a lot of problems with the car.
It's something of an understatement. It took three months to fix a fundamental aerodynamic flaw in Mercedes' worst design in a decade. Other problems came about once they had.
The car is still very difficult to drive, even though it has made significant progress this year.
Trying to get this year's Mercedes to the limit is like creeping up behind a horse, according to Hamilton.
He says you are trying to get as close as you can. Before it kicks you in the face, what is the break point? When it hits your face, it will hurt.
It's one of the best ways to describe what it's like when you're trying to lean on the car. There is a random car in this picture.
Everyone at Mercedes has beengruelling trying to resolve the car's problems.
He says that they were all positive in February. We were told we were going to have a big car.
It's such a tiring time for everyone in the team when they really crunch and out in the crazy hours, because everyone who was working on it was so excited with all the hard work they put in.
It was difficult for everyone to find out that the thing doesn't work. I think everyone was having a hard time.
We went through our own process of dealing with it. It has been a powerful time for us all. We're tighter as a team.
He thought it would be a difficult year.
He said that he had a feeling when he first drove the car. You can never rule it out. By the first race, we might have fixed it. Who doesn't know?
I had never had that bounce before. I didn't think the guys would take so long. They have had to create new things.
You just hold on to hope, that's all." The next upgrade doesn't work and the next upgrade doesn't work either.
People who are building those things are seeing performance in the wind tunnel, but they are not seeing it on the track. You keep getting knocked down.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It will be difficult to change the car into a leading car for next year, but we have a better idea of why the car is the way it is.
At the start of the season, Hamilton's problems with the car and the fact that the engineers did not know how to fix them made them look bad.
He had some bad luck with the timing of safety cars. George Russell built a lead over Hamilton in the championship and people wondered if he should have retired.
Hamilton was experimenting with the car on race weekend.
He has tried everything. I've tried everything you can think of. At the start of the year, I was doing that.
The idea of performing at your best and getting the best result each weekend is nice, but I wanted to find more data and information for you. They have a better understanding of what's happening when we return to the factory. It hampered some of the weekends.
After the Canadian Grand Prix in June, Hamilton decided that this approach wasn't the best and focused more on performance. The picture changed as he did.
Russell has had a great year. He is closer to Hamilton on pure performance than any team-mate since Fernando Alonso in 2007, and has consolidated his status as one of the bright stars of the new generation, and a driver who can lead Mercedes in the future.
If you only take the races from Canada, the difference is 0.175 seconds.
At races where a fair comparison can be made, Hamilton has out qualified Russell for the last six races in a row. Mercedes engineers say that Hamilton is better able to deal with unpredictable cars.
Russell's season has been more consistent than Hamilton's, and he still leads on points. At the US Grand Prix last weekend, it was Hamilton who produced the most competitive Mercedes race drives.
The lack of performance has allowed the drivers to build a relationship without the pressure of a title fight and Hamilton has taken on an almost paternal stance with his team-mate. The competitive desire is still present in him.
Hamilton says that George is doing well. There are no issues with it. There are no problems with us.
George and his team don't experiment the same way. I'm willing to take these risks because I have been here for a long time.
I've been talking to a lot of people for the last decade. I can argue with Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes' engineering director.
It's George's first year with the team and he's just doing his job. There wasn't much movement of the set up. I'm doing all the leg work, back and forth here and there, and different wings. I enjoy that.
We can be more focused on our car if we have a car that we are happy with. We can have a better fight.
I don't really care what happens at the end of the season. We aren't in the title. We are in the top five. It is different if it was first and second.
At the end of next season, Hamilton's Mercedes contract ends, and he will turn 39 at the beginning of the following year. He was unsure if he would be racing in F1 at 40. It now seems like it will happen. For the first time, he said that he will sign a new contract with Mercedes and race on beyond the current season.
He said they are going to do another deal. We are going to discuss it in the next few months.
I want to stay with Mercedes. I have been with Mercedes for 13 years. It's my family. I've been with Mercedes-Benz for a long time.
I was kicked out of school, but they stuck with me. They were with me through the whole of 2020 and his determination to raise issues of diversity and inclusion in F. They have helped me through the ups and downs of my life.
I think that this brand is great. I believe in the people that work for the organization. I want to be the best teammate I can be to them because I think we can make the brand even better. I believe I can be involved in that.
At the end of the year, I try to analyse my year and my next three- to five-year plan. It is hard to do 10.
Where do I think I'm going? I don't know what I want to do. What do I want my life to look like? Things are being added There is a lot of work going on. There are a lot of positive things in my life that allow me to succeed outside.
I want to race. I really enjoy what I do. I have been doing it for 30 years and I don't think I need to stop. I think I'm still getting paid. I would like to do better.
I have a lot of things in the works that I will be super- focused and busy.
I'm here because I love my job and the organization that I work in. You have to stay with me. You are with me for a long time.
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