Lewis Hamilton hasn’t really set F1 testing in Barcelona on fire, as Mercedes seem to be off pace, as compared to their major rivals Ferrari.
While Mercedes have a history of sandbagging during testing, multiple reports suggest that this time they are truly behind in the pecking order.
While Ferrari seemed to have the quicker package for sometime during the 2018 season, Lewis Hamilton feels the advantage is even greater this time.
Mercedes were able to sort out their issues and close down the gap last season(in terms of pure performance), but this time, the mountain is even steeper.
“It doesn’t make it easier, that’s for sure,” Lewis Hamilton said as quoted by Crash.net
“Naturally it makes it harder.
“Already last year there were many, many occasions where we as a team were behind on performance so we had to overachieve on delivery. Now we just have to reach even further than we did last year when we were behind.
“We weren’t behind anywhere near as much as that I would say last year, so now we have to reach even further. That means we have to squeeze our performance even more, but we’re going to have to be careful also in that scenario because that can just push you over the edge and you can have faults.
“But I’ve got the best team around. We’ve got experience. It’s no coincidence that we’re world champions, so we just have to be diligent and stay balanced.” he added.
Speaking about Ferrari’s advantage in terms of seconds, Hamilton feels that they are about 0.5 seconds quicker than Mercedes.
The Brit confirmed that Mercedes will be analysing results from the test and making changes to the car, according to that.
He however admitted that it would be difficult to make drastic changes in such a short time.
“I’m not quite sure, but I think it is potentially half a second. Something like that potentially.” Lewis Hamilton said.
“We will be analysing a lot from this test and there will be some mods that we will try to implement for the race, but there is obviously not a lot of time. But over the next week we will try to gain another tenth at least in our understanding of the car.
“The car is old now and worn and torn, so we will have new components and all of that stuff will come along. It will be interesting.
“We really won’t know, because everyone will have different power modes and fuel usage, and you don’t know what everyone is doing.
“So Melbourne will be the first time you get a sight of it and then it will be a good four races before you know just where you stand.” he added.
Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari have been leading the pack in testing and it seems like they could be running the show in Melbourne.
Do you think Lewis Hamilton can win his 6th world title this season?
