Melbourne (AFP)
An undrivable car, and an admission that he is struggling “mentally and emotionally”, in light of a painful reality, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton seeks a seventh consecutive start from first place in the Australian Grand Prix, the third round of the Formula One World Championship. ».
Never before has the Mercedes driver experienced such a disappointing start to the season, as he struggled against the supremacy of Ferrari and Red Bull and was helpless, whether during a “test” on Saturday or Sunday’s race at Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit and in the streets of Jeddah.
The German yard, crowned with the manufacturers’ title in the last eight years, and specifically since 2014, the beginning of the era of hybrid engines, suffers from vibrations at high speeds after a radical change in single-seater cars under the umbrella of new laws that favor more closely racing.
“It’s hard some days to stay positive,” wrote “Sir” Hamilton on his Instagram page, reflecting his frustration.
“I struggled mentally and emotionally for a long time, to keep working is a constant effort but we have to keep fighting,” said the 37-year-old, winner of 103 races. We have a lot to do and achieve.”
Hamilton, frustrated by losing his eighth title last year on the final lap of the final rounds at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, described his car as “undrivable” after his shock exit from the first official test in Jeddah, for the first time since the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2017.
Things did not improve during the race, as the Briton reached tenth to collect an orphan point, while the time list indicated that he was 1:13.948 behind the winner of Red Bull’s Dutch driver Max Verstappen.
He considered his third in the first round in Bahrain a stroke of luck, as he owed his achievement to the double withdrawal in the last laps of the drivers of the defending Red Bull and Mexican teammate Sergio “Checo” Perez.
Red Bull’s motorsport consultant Helmut Marko has no doubts about the Mercedes team’s ability to overcome its problems, while denying that the decline of the “silver stocks” is a future sign of the end of an era during which the team dominated the constructors’ and drivers’ titles.
“I’m sure they will come back if they can get over the concussion problem,” he said before the Melbourne race.
“Hamilton is 9 points behind Verstappen, and that’s also nothing, I don’t think it’s the end of an ‘era’, but maybe a battle of the same level.”
Indeed, the numbers indicate that Hamilton, who is in sixth place in the drivers’ standings with 16 points, is 9 behind the third “Mad Max”, but the biggest gap is that he is 29 behind Ferrari’s leader, Charles Leclerc of Monaco, who appears with his red car intangible.
A new failure in Melbourne this week will make the seven-times world champion’s job of disengaging from G1 legend Michael Schumacher even more difficult, if not nearly impossible.
Albert Park often smiles at the Briton, who dominates the first place at the starting line 8 times, including 6 times in a row with Mercedes since 2014, but he did not succeed in translating his superiority to victory only in 2008 (with McLaren) and 2015 (Mercedes).
Australia refrained from hosting the Grand Prix due to the repercussions of the Corona virus in the past two years, while Hamilton started from first place during the last edition of the 2019 race, while the victory returned to his former Finnish teammate, Valtteri Bottas, “Alfa Romeo now.”
Mercedes Austrian Principal Toto Wolff admitted it had “never been fun” to see Hamilton and the team battle this year for the spotted flag or even the podium.
Wolff touched on what is happening in front of the journalists, “We will not rest until we get back to the front,” stressing, “It was not fun. It is an exercise in humility and it will make us stronger in the end, although it is not fun now.”
“I very much hope that the gap” in Melbourne” is much closer than what we saw “in Saudi Arabia”, but we have problems in all respects,” he added.
Albert Park, the birthplace of Mercedes’ hegemony with its hybrid engine in 2014, has a new and faster design this year, so will you smile again at a struggling driver and team under the microscope of testing?
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