© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
Lewis Hamilton says there will not be “a huge difference” in Mercedes’ performance in Saudi Arabia compared to Bahrain, but he is not feeling “too stressed” about it.
At the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix drivers’ press conference, Lewis Hamilton gave an update on Mercedes’ current state.
“We have issues and we’re fighting to fix them,” Hamilton said.
“There’s a lot of potential within our car. We’re just trying to work as hard as we can to rectify them as quick as possible.
“I have no doubt that I’ve got the best group of people behind me in order to come up with solutions and fix it and extract performance.
“So, I don’t currently feel too stressed. But I want to get in the fight as soon as possible.
“The last race was obviously an amazing feeling for us given where we thought we were going to be to come out with the result we did.
“But we can’t rely every weekend on that to happen so we need to do move forwards as fast as we can.”
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However, Lewis believes the team can turn things around and get closer to the top teams.
“I’m very proud of my team for just keeping their heads down, staying focussed, turning to the crazy amounts of data that there is every time we’re basically out in the car and just trying to understand what the issues we have.
“We’re aware of the problems we have, but in terms of what’s causing it, we’re just working through trying to figure that out and how we can rectify it without losing performance.
“But three days is such a short time between races, there’s not a huge difference here this weekend.
“Hopefully we’ll have some things to try. And from a driver’s perspective that’s exciting coming in to today when we get into the car, for example, just trying something new and hoping that it unlocks a bit of performance.
“But the others are still very strong and as I said last week, it was great to see Ferrari back up there after a couple of difficult years.”
Asked how much performance Mercedes is losing because they had to increase ride height to combat porpoising, he said:
“I’ve not been given exact numbers, but I know they’re large. The cars that are ahead of us, for example, have an incredible amount of low-speed downforce.”
Hamilton also gave his comments on the Jeddah Circuit.
“It shouldn’t be as bumpy as Bahrain. Bahrain’s obviously a much older circuit, it’s got more character to it because it is as old as it is.
“This track is super-fast but a different surface, it will behave with the tyres differently. These long straights might not be too much fun with the bouncing if we still have it.
“Those that have the bouncing are in the same boat, hopefully we’ll try and fix some of it,” the Briton concluded.
