Is it getting late early for Mercedes?
The 2023 Formula 1 season is only one race outdated, however the angst is rising within the Mercedes camp. After a gap weekend that the crew described as “tough” noticed Lewis Hamilton end fifth and George Russell come throughout the road seventh, the Silver Arrows are in search of solutions.
When Hamilton got here throughout the road seventh on the Bahrain Grand Prix, he supplied a message of help for the crew. Hamilton acknowledged that the crew has “serious work to do” to “close the gap” to Red Bull, however that he believed within the crew:
Now the seven-time champion has gone a bit additional. Speaking with BBC analyst Rosanna Tennant on the F1: Chequered Flag after the Bahrain Grand Prix, Hamilton opened up concerning the crew’s 2023 challenger, the W14, and the way the crew didn’t hearken to him concerning the automotive.
“Last year, I told them the issues that are with the car,” defined Hamilton. “Like, I’ve driven so many cars in my life, so I know what a car needs. I know what a car doesn’t need.”
“We’ve got to look into the balance through the corners, look at all the weak points and just huddle up as a team, that’s what we do,” Hamilton continued. “We’re still multi World Champions you know, it’s just that they haven’t got it right this time, they didn’t get it right last year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get it right moving forwards.”
Hamilton’s feedback come because the crew appears to be like to regroup forward of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. But they underscore the theme that Mercedes has a number of work to do to shut the hole not simply to Red Bull, but in addition Ferrari and Aston Martin. Following the Bahrain Grand Prix, Hamilton conceded that Mercedes was “fourth fastest,” with each Ferrari and Aston Martin “just quicker than us.”
His teammate George Russell went a step additional, insinuating that the season may already be getting away from Mercedes. “We are all here to win,” Russell outlined in a press release given to the media together with SB Nation. “If we must sacrifice some races or part of this season to give ourselves a chance to fight in the second half of the season, or even next year, that is what we are going to have to do.”
Mercedes confronted an identical battle at the beginning of 2022, coping with the much-documented porpoising points that hampered the primary half of their marketing campaign. The Silver Arrows finally improved their 2022 challenger, the W13, to some extent the place the crew made a late-season push up the Constructors’ desk, and Russell secured his first F1 victory at Interlagos.
But these changes, and that late-season push, got here too late for the crew to noticeably mount a problem on the high of the desk.
Now the crew, and their legions of followers, is hoping historical past has not repeated itself.