Mercedes performed admirably at the Spanish Grand Prix, giving Lewis Hamilton his best finish of the year in Barcelona. However, the seven-time world champion had a somber message for fans following the race.
Lewis Hamilton acknowledged he still doesn’t have a car that can defeat Red Bull and claimed Mercedes were at their “peak” in Barcelona.
After finishing third on Sunday, the seven-time Formula One champion achieved his best result and first podium of the year. He was still more than eighteen seconds behind Max Verstappen, though, who defeated Lando Norris to claim his seventh 2024 victory.
George Russell, a teammate, finished fourth as Mercedes continued to show off their recent improvements. Hamilton believes there is still more work to be done if he is to win one more race before switching to Ferrari for the upcoming season, even though he is happy with the progress that has been made.
“I believe that’s the maximum [the car] has at the moment,” he stated. We always make minor adjustments to it to make it even better. However, in order to match these guys, we’ll need to add a few extras and tack on some extra features.
“Given where we’ve come from, I believe the goal has to be maintaining consistency and trying to push the team higher in the standings. We’ll see after we just attempt to have more regular weekends like this one. However, we are not yet in a position where we can compete with them for victories.
“In the next four or five races, I’m hoping we can get a little bit closer to them and give them a little more trouble.” In addition, Hamilton secured third position on the grid, one spot ahead of Russell, putting in his best qualifying effort of the year thus far.
It was just the second time this year that he had outperformed his teammate, and he identified Mercedes’s one-lap pace as the primary flaw in their vehicles. “I still feel like I lost performance going into quali,” he said in his explanation.
It all depends on your point of view; perhaps they were just moving forward, but I firmly believe that there was a bit more. But the car doesn’t like it when you start to push it. In actuality, the car feels pretty good when you leave a little margin.
But we really struggle when you start to rely too much on it to try and squeeze out that extra lap time. I believe the cause lies entirely in the tires.” Russell, meanwhile, is more certain that Mercedes has “definitely” proven to be a threat to the three teams above them once more.
He declared: “We’ve been battling for the front rows of the grid and podiums for a few races now. The progress we’ve made is really encouraging, and I think we can now really build on this.”
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