While Aston Martin, Red Bull and even Ferrari looked sharp on the first day of the season-opening Grand Prix, Mercedes looked in trouble. Lewis Hamilton, who hoped for the Silver Arrows’ comeback in 2023, now worries about his team’s prospects.
On the one hand, the Bahrain preseason testing wasn’t a good show for Mercedes, and the Friday practice session didn’t bring any respite either. Looking at his telemetry data, Hamilton is now worried.
According to the seven-time world champion, Mercedes is likely to be worse than its predecessor W13 which gave a terrible campaign to the Brackley-based team last year.
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Lewis Hamilton thinks this year could get worse
After the competition of Friday practices, Hamilton talked to the media. He was dejected with the car’s output as he finished P10 in FP1 and P8 in the following session. These results make him feel that his side could not progress this year.
“We are either where we were last year, if not, a little bit further behind. We are just on the wrong track. Right now we are a long way off the guys in front. There was good progress last year, but the gap wasn’t as big as it is now,” said Hamilton, according to Philip Duncan.
If Hamilton’s claim is true, the Silver Arrows are at risk of getting out of the top-three fight this year. Aston Martin, who continued progressing even this weekend, could lose them in the standings race.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff already admitted that Aston Martin could very well oust them or even Ferrar from their last year’s position. However, the season is long, and much more awaits.
Hamilton says there is no plan B
Last week, reports circulated that Mercedes could implement a ‘plan B’ if things with zero sidepods don’t workout. However, Hamilton calls these claims bullshit, and that’s not because Mercedes hasn’t come up with one, but it’s not practical.
In the cost cap era, teams are barely managing to budget their operations. Therefore, if a concept has to be implemented from scratch, then Mercedes could end up over the budget, which wouldn’t be worthwhile for them due to the penalties.
So, as of now, things at Mercedes don’t look promising ahead of the season start. But they could catch the superior teams with efficient developments over the season.
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