Lewis Hamilton bemoaned one of the 'worst' sessions he's had in a long time after a difficult second practice session which he finished 18th out of the 19 cars that took part
Despite more optimism from Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton over their new W15 car, compared to its predecessors, they are still struggling to compete at the sharp end of the F1 grid
Eddie Jordan believes Lewis Hamilton looks “dejected already” after an underwhelming start to his final season as a Mercedes driver.
Hamilton came into the year filled with optimism and has spoken much more positively about his new car than the two previous machines he was given. But results have yet to reflect that optimism.
He finished seventh and 50 seconds down the road from winner Max Verstappen in Bahrain. And there was a similar gap between them the following weekend in Saudi Arabia – though this time the seven-time world champion had even fewer points to show for it in ninth.
Speaking after the Jeddah race, he said: “I wouldn’t say I’m having fun. I’m racing for ninth, so I definitely can’t say that. Finishing ninth is definitely not fun. But I am enjoying the actual racing part. And I was hunting and I was pushing as hard as I could, I was maximising everything I had with the car, I was right on the edge.
“It was just unfortunately really lacking performance in the high-speed, where they were walking all over us. But there are positives. The car is good in low speed. We have to add a lot of load in the high-speed. I think if we were able to do that then I think it puts us in the fight. But we’ve got some work to do.”
David Coulthard has sensed discomfort from Hamilton in these early weeks of the season and pointed to the fact team-mate George Russell has looked sharper so far. He said: “[Hamilton] has just not been settled with this car and you can tell. George is just honing the lap time right now and you can feel that Lewis is on the back foot.
“What we do know though, if he does find a window of performance, then you know he will deliver. But right now, it’s looking like his decision to head off to Ferrari, mentally, he is already there.”
Coulthard’s friend and former F1 team owner Jordan agrees. Speaking on their shared Formula For Success podcast, the Irish businessman said he has spotted signs that Hamilton is disillusioned with the team he has represented for a decade after being given another car that looks incapable of winning races.
He said: “Lewis, I think, is a bit dejected already with the state of Mercedes. Mercedes and Toto [Wolff], it’s the same as last year, isn’t it? It’s started poorly. It’s very hard to catch up. When you’ve got somebody like Max who has 51 points on the board, or something like that, already… I mean, it’s just ridiculous.
“How is Mercedes going to compete? The problem for all the other competitors is that other than Ferrari, I cannot see anyone making a serious challenge to this Red Bull team.”
