Hamilton admits securing title will be tough after ‘disaster’ performance
Lewis Hamilton last night admitted that his hopes of sealing a fifth world championship are now in grave danger as his winless start to the new season continued.
Hamilton reduced the deficit to Sebastian Vettel in their title battle to only nine points after Max Verstappen’s collision with the Ferrari driver during yesterday’s frenetic race. But after dominating practice on Friday, Hamilton was then well off the pace for the remainder of the weekend – finishing fourth – at a circuit where both he and Mercedes have ruled in recent seasons.
Hamilton could not get his rear tyres to work in the cold conditions in qualifying, but there was still no improvement in his form yesterday despite the warmer temperatures.
The 33-year-old Englishman was the hot favourite to beat Vettel to this year’s title but he believes that his once-dominant Mercedes team are behind Ferrari and indeed Red Bull in Formula One’s pecking order. “Who knows what this season holds, but if it continues this way it is going to be very tough to win the championship,” Hamilton said. “We under-performed in qualifying and the race was a disaster on my side of the garage.
“It has not changed my thinking about the season, and my goals are obviously still the same, but it is clear from this weekend that we are not the quickest. We are the second or third fastest team at the moment so we have got some improving to do, but that is not impossible.”
Hamilton fell one place to fifth off the start line. He was back in fourth, moving ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, before Red Bull’s inspired pit-stop safety car call paved the way for Daniel Ricciardo to win.
Hamilton felt he should have been hauled in for fresh rubber too, but Mercedes, not predicting how fast Ricciardo and Verstappen would be on their new tyres, felt track position would be of greater importance.
“I’ve got to take it upon myself to try and figure out what has gone wrong and move forward,” added Hamilton.