Mercedes actually wanted to fight for the title in the freshly started Formula 1 season, but this year’s black arrow doesn’t seem to be able to perform at its best (again). Lewis Hamilton had warned his team. But his tips and advice were apparently not heard, as the F1 record world champion has now revealed.
Fifth place for Lewis Hamilton, seventh place for George Russell: The Mercedes team, accustomed to success, had certainly imagined the season opener in Bahrain differently. Hamilton in particular probably expected a lot more after the difficult year 2022, in which he remained without a win for the first time in his F1 career.
In any case, according to the Briton, he tried everything to make the new W14 competitive again. But as it turns out, no attention was paid to the veteran.
“Last year I told them what problems there were with the car,” Hamilton annoyed on the English TV station “BBC”.
“I’ve driven so many cars in my life that I know what a car needs and what it doesn’t need,” added the seven-time world champion, who had dominated Formula 1 with Mercedes before the rule reform.
From Hamilton’s point of view, the Mercedes designers and aerodynamicists should now take the “responsibility”, “admit it to themselves and say: ‘Yeah, you know what, we didn’t listen to you, it’s not how it should be and we have to work on it'”, the 38-year-old put his finger in the wound.
Hamilton: Haven’t done it right several times now!
The task for the technicians is clear: “We have to check the balance in the curves, uncover all weak points and pull ourselves together as a team.”
After all, you still have the experience of being a multiple world champion, according to Hamilton, “only they didn’t do it right this time, they didn’t do it right last year,” criticized the Mercedes driver and added meaningfully: “But that doesn’t mean that we can’t do it right in the future.”
Toto Wolff recently announced that he wanted to radically rebuild the W14 in order to close the gap to Red Bull.