Hamilton and Russell worry about Mercedes’ start in Formula 1

The feeling of Mercedes drivers after the first Formula 1 race of the season is one of frustration and disappointment. After promising a competitive car for the team to fight for titles again after an underwhelming 2022, what was seen at the Bahrain GP was that the problems remain, to the revolt of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, who lamented a “regression” Of car.

Even with Hamilton in fifth position in Bahrain and Russel crossing in seventh, Mercedes drivers think little and see the team behind not only Red Bull and Ferreri, as in 2022, but also surpassed by Aston Martin, with Fernando Alonso in third on the Sahkir circuit and with Lance Stroll in sixth.

Hamilton even fought for position with Alonso and even touched Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari, but was unable to overtake for fourth place and admitted that something is missing in the new Mercedes car.

“We definitely can’t fight them at the moment (Ferrari drivers). They were much faster than us, as were the Astons. We are the fourth fastest team now, as opposed to third last year,” lamented Hamilton. “We’re going backwards, so we really have a lot of work to do to close that gap.”

Drivers are expected to meet with the team throughout this week to seek solutions. In 15 days the Saudi Arabian GP will take place and something will have to be done to the car to avoid further disappointment in a long season of 23 races.

“The fact is that we didn’t have enough performance in the car. The practice exceeded our expectations, but in the race we came back to reality and we need to keep working (on the development of the car),” lamented Russell. “Perhaps we’ve been a bit too conservative with the design and we’re missing out on too much performance downforce. With all these changes we’ve made to try to improve the car, we probably seem to be the team that has the least evolution right now,” he continued.

Russell’s scolding didn’t stop there. “We’ve gone from the team that has the most to the team that has the least. And maybe with the changes the FIA ​​made over the winter, that solved a lot of the problems and maybe we’ve gone too far,” he said. “But I’m not an engineer, I’m not an aerodynamicist, so I really don’t know, I don’t know, let’s get together.”