Martin Brundle has said it was “not apparent” to him that Lewis Hamilton was driving one of his worst races in Formula 1 in Canada, but believes the speed of the young stars in the sport means he will need his “A game” to be ahead of them.
Hamilton had called the race “one of the worst” he had driven after finishing fourth, highlighting “lots of mistakes” he made on Sunday, but is confident he will get better “if I get my head on right.”
Martin Brundle: Lewis Hamilton may need ‘A game’ to match F1 youngsters
The Canadian Grand Prix was Mercedes’ most competitive weekend of the season from a pace perspective, with George Russell taking pole position after Hamilton had put in what team principal Toto Wolff described as “stratospheric” lap times in FP3 earlier on Saturday.
Having been passed for the final podium spot in the closing laps by his team-mate, the seven-time World Champion was not so complimentary of his own performance for the weekend as a whole.
“It was just over the weekend a really poor performance from myself,” Hamilton told Sky F1 after the race in Canada.
“Some other things came into it yesterday, but mostly myself and today just one of the worst races that I’ve driven. Just lots of mistakes. Of course if I’d qualified better, I would have been in a much better position. So it is what it is. I will go back to the drawing board.
“On the positive note, big big thanks to everyone back at the factory for progressing this car, because it is becoming a car we can fight with. That’s the real positive going into this next part of the season.
“I know we have hopefully some more upgrades coming, they’re on the way, so it’s going to be a close battle.
“And if I get my head on right, I’ll get better results.”
But per Sky analyst Brundle’s assessment, the former Formula 1 driver agreed that Mercedes held significant pace within the W15 over the weekend.
Within that, he believes Hamilton will have to show all his skill to keep ahead of the sport’s young drivers, who are in the position of having both youth and experience on their side.
“There was some aggressive defending and overtaking going on, and, whilst not an all-time classic, this was a gruelling and memorable race,” Brundle wrote in his post-race Sky Sports column.
“The second takeaway is that once onto dry tyres, Mercedes were the fastest car and could have won on sheer pace.
“A critical error in Turn 8 while pushing hard cost Russell track position and the chance to attack Verstappen, who was getting along just about fine whilst managing suspension issues particularly in relation to riding kerbs.
“There was a point where Hamilton was absolutely flying and recovering nicely having been tucked up behind Alonso in the first phase of the race.
“Lewis later described it as one of his worst drives, which wasn’t apparent to me but maybe he was making a lot of small errors here and there.
“The youngsters in front of him remain youthfully fast and fearless, but have a lot of experience too, and he’ll always need his ‘A game’ to match or beat them now.”
