Seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton, has said that Mercedes cannot be competitive in its current state. He made this statement as the pre-season testing came to an end, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen claiming the fastest lap position. Hamilton did not finish top 10.
Although Mercedes had the quickest start, Hamilton believes their new car, the W13, is far from being the best. According to him, Mercedes cannot compete against Ferrari or Red Bull yet. He said, “At the moment, I don’t think we will be competing for wins. Obviously next week we will get a much better showing of our pace, but I think [other] people will be surprised maybe. People keep talking about us talking ourselves down, but it’s a bit different this year.” Mercedes has a history of understating how good their car is at the beginning of the season, but they have won eight Constructor’s titles in a row.
He continued: “We are not the quickest at the moment. I think Ferrari look to be the quickest, perhaps Red Bull and then maybe us or McLaren, I don’t know. But we are currently not at the top.”
Hamilton, however, believes all hope is not lost, and things can still be done, as the car shows great potential: “There is potential within our car to get us there. We’ve just got to learn to be able to extract it and fix some of the problems, which is what we’re working on.”
Hamilton does not also believe that things would be the same as previous years when Mercedes has won the season-opening race and dominated the season: “It is not as good. It is not going to look as good as it did last year with the difficult session we had in practice and then switch over to the race.”
AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly also commented on Mercedes‘a state, after “fighting with Lewis for a couple of laps”.
Mercedes would have to assess their car and make some changes before the season officially begins if they hope to compete for the title this year. Verstappen winning the fastest lap should tell Mercedes that this season would just be as competitive as the last, and they have to bring their best to the track every race weekend.
Written by: Leon Osamor
