Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BACK ON TRACK
Lewis & George turn up the heat after Mercedes overcome woes
LEWIS HAMILTON was ready to retire from the Spanish Grand Prix after finding himself second last on the opening lap.
But the seven-times world champion leaves Barcelona with renewed confidence after fighting through the field to finish fifth.
And another superb performance from George Russell, which earned him third spot and saw him briefly head the field, suggests Mercedes are on the right track.
Hamilton said: “We have made a lot of improvements with the car.
“If I didn’t have the issue at the start I would have been fighting the Red Bulls so that gives me a great hope at some stage we will be fighting for the win.
“It feels better than a win when you have come from so far back and faced that adversity. To come back as I did today, it felt like the olden days, and to me that is amazing.”
Bridging the gap to Red Bull and Ferrari will take a herculean effort.
But at least the Mercedes is no longer shaking the fillings out of their drivers’ teeth, with the ‘porpoising’ issues much improved.
And if Ferrari continue to suffer the engine issues which forced Charles Leclerc to retire, robbing him of certain victory at the Circuit de Barcelona-catalunya, it will certainly aid Mercedes’ recovery.
Catching Red Bull is another story, after strategy decisions and team orders robbed Sergio Perez of the chance to fight team-mate Max Verstappen for the win, the Mexican forced to settle for second.
Early on, Verstappen was blowing his top as he struggled to recover from sliding off the track and found himself stuck behind Russell without the tools to overtake due to a dodgy DRS system.
By the end the reigning world champion was cool as a cucumber, praising Perez for playing the team game which helped him move six points clear of Leclerc in the title race ahead of Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix.
Perez didn’t sound like a man who had much choice, describing the decision to favour Verstappen as “very unfair” before warning his team “we will talk about this later”.
Hamilton too has his issues with his team-mate, namely that Russell has been quicker than him all season.
A first lap tangle with Kevin Magnussen, which saw the Haas driver punted into the gravel and Hamilton heading for the pits after picking up a puncture, did little to lift the gloom.
Trailing around at the back Hamilton radioed in to suggest calling it a day. “I would save this engine if I was you,” he said.
But on his wind-down lap he was being lauded by his team as a man who, had it not been for his early misfortune, would have had the pace to have been challenging for the win.
And Russell said: “We’re making progress and as a team we’ve turned the page and feel like this is probably the start of our season now.
“We’re six races behind but there’s no reason why we can’t claw this back.”