© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
Lewis Hamilton says although Red Bull and Ferrari look “ridiculously fast at the moment”, Mercedes “are the best team”.
Mercedes seems to have had a lot of problems during the Bahrain Pre-Season test and at the moment looks to be behind Red Bull and Ferrari in terms of pace.
However, at the Dubai Expo 2020 [held in 2022, yesterday to be exact], Lewis Hamilton said his team is still the best overall team on the grid.
“The testing’s been difficult,” the Briton said.
“There were a lot of cars that were looking quite fast. The Alfa Romeo was looking fast, Valtteri [Bottas] was looking quick.
“Obviously the Red Bull looks ridiculously fast at the moment, and the Ferraris. But we are the best team, undoubtedly.”
Lewis then detailed the steps he is going to take with the team to get to the bottom of the W13’s problems ahead of the first race of 2022 in Bahrain.
“The testing was tough, but the great thing is, right now after this I have a conference call with all the guys in Brixworth [Mercedes’ engine HQ], talking about the engine, the driveability, about how we can get more power out for this week.
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“Then I have another conference call with all the engineers up in Brackley [Mercedes’ team HQ] and just [discussing] how we can push this car forward, how we can stop it from jumping, how we can extract all the performance from it.
“So everyone’s hyped, everyone’s excited. And these engineers, they love the challenge. So it’s good.”
Lewis then also mentioned the porpoising that the car is suffering from.
“It’s crazy because, years ago, we used to have a lot of test days and now we only have, literally, three days in the car altogether [there’s six days of testing, but it’s three full days per driver]? So it’s not a lot of laps.
“When we go into this race, this week, we’re still learning about the car – we probably will be for the first four races at least. We’ve got a lot of problems. As you have seen, everyone’s bouncing up and down.
“It’s interesting, because I was worried that, you know, I’m 37 now, so I’m racing against George, he’s only 24, right? But he had problems and he was feeling it in his back.
“So it’s not just an age thing,” Hamilton concluded.
