Hamilton 'Not Happy' With Mercedes Performance But Believes In Potential

Thursday, 21 March 2024 at 12:00

The seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton told the media ahead of the third race in 2024 that he wasn't happy with his previous performance but believed in the potential of W15.

It is difficult to assess Mercedes's performance after the first two races of 2024. Silver Arrows looked like the third-fastest team in the first race but struggled with technical issues.

Toto Wolff said after the Bahrain Grand Prix that his team had to tune down their engines, which reduced their performance. If it weren't for engine troubles, they could have apparently fought with Ferrari.

During the second race of the season at Jeddah Corniche Circuit, Mercedes cars showed their strength in straight-line speed and slower corners but lost an awful lot of time in high-speed corners.

After this race, Wolff admitted that the behavior of the Mercedes car on track didn't match their computer simulations, which could be quite a significant problem.

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However, the whole German team still believes there is a lot of potential to unlock in that W15. Lewis Hamilton told the media at Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne:

"I do think we have an amazing car which has a lot of potential and we just haven’t maximised the revenues which are sent out through us."

The 39-year-old showed his frustration after the Suadi Arabian Grand Prix when he said he wasn't having fun driving in P9 and that he felt as if he was driving a car from a lower category as he watched rivals disappear in high-speed turns.

He repeated that he wasn't happy with the performance from previous races but asserted that there is a level of potential that W15 has, which hasn't been ulocked yet. He added:

"Ultimately, we're not happy with the performance of those first couple of races. But I think there's a level of potential that we just haven't quite attracted yet."

"So that's what everyone's purpose is all with this premise, we're going to understand the car. And we're hoping to get a handful of huge amount of work because everyone's heads down in numbers."