Formula 1: Former Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton has made a big claim regarding his team Mercedes and the underperformance of the car in the new season of racing. The Mercedes team is looking off-colour from its usual status of a world-dominant team for the second consecutive time. Meanwhile, Hamilton has said that his team did not listen to him on the car advice.
After the Bahrain GP, Hamilton said that they are far from more than the top teams at the moment and are going backwards in terms of performance. Now, Hamilton has asked tough questions from his team.
“I've driven so many cars in my life. I know what a car needs. I know what a car doesn't need. I think it's really about accountability. It's about owning up and saying, Yeah, you know what? We didn't listen to you. It's not where it needs to be and we've got to work," he told BBC Radio 5 Live's Chequered Flag podcast on Wednesday.
The seven-time world champion hopes to get better performance going forward. “We're still (multiple) world champions, you know? Just haven't got it right this time,” Hamilton said. "Didn't get it right last year. But that doesn't mean we can't get it right moving forwards,” he added.
Mercedes finished fifth and seventh at the Bahrain GP as Red Bull, Ferrari and even Aston Martin outplayed them in the season opener. He finished 51 seconds behind the winner Max Verstappen at fifth place. After the race, Hamilton said, "We definitely can't fight Ferrari at the moment. "They were much quicker than us today, as were the Astons. We're the fourth fastest team. We are going backwards, we have a lot of work to do to close that gap."
Team Principal Toto Wolff had stated that the Bahrain GP was one of the worst racing days for him. "One of the worst days in racing. Really not good at all, we were just lacking pace front, right, and centre," Wolff had said as quoted by Sky Sports F1.
