Lewis Hamilton crowned "worthy successor to Inspector Seb" after viral Mercedes moment

Lewis Hamilton sparked fan debate after being spotted inspecting Mercedes’ dominant 2026 car as his former team continued its stunning start to the season

Lewis Hamilton has been branded as the "worthy successor to Inspector Seb" by fans after he was spotted inspecting the dominant Mercedes.

The seven-time Formula 1 champion left the Brackley outfit at the end of 2024 after a successful 12-year stint with the team, which resulted in six of his seven drivers' titles and seven constructors' championship wins.

In 2025, he moved to Ferrari. During his first season with the Maranello outfit, he struggled to adapt to the new team, but 2026 has kicked off to a much better start under the new regulations. He finished the season-opening grand prix in fourth and will start the Chinese Grand Prix from third.

While Hamilton has bounced back, so has his former team. Mercedes is happy to put the ground effect era behind it and has already had a dominant start to 2026. George Russell and Kimi Antonelli converted a front-row lockout to a 1-2 finish in Australia. The Briton also won the Chinese sprint race while Antonelli took pole position for the grand prix in Shanghai.

With Hamilton seen inspecting the Mercedes, fans questioned whether he might be regretting his decision to move teams.

"He's always dreamed of racing for Ferrari since he was a child, and now he's in the 2nd fastest car, chasing the team he left, who are the fastest - it's exactly the kind of scenario that true racers dream of," one fan commented on Reddit, while another added, referring to Sebastian Vettel: "We finally have a worthy successor to Inspector Seb."

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Formula 1 via Getty Images

"He's doing what everyone else is doing, looking at the other Merc customer data and performances and then trying to figure out where 6 tenths is coming from a car that has little aero development to explain it," wrote someone else.

One fan commented: "You know when you leave to another job and get curious and look up your previous company's website or LinkedIn to see what they're up to and think, 'huh, interesting.' That's probably about it."