Mercedes has had a rocky start to the new era of Formula One, with Hamilton qualifying fifth fastest for the season-opening Bahrain GP.
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At the start of the 2022 Formula One season, Lewis Hamilton admitted that Ferrari and Red Bull are “in another league” than Mercedes. After a difficult pre-season, Mercedes has had a rocky start to the new era of Formula One, with Hamilton qualifying fifth fastest for the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. The seven-time world champion finished 0.680s slower than pole-sitter Charles Leclerc, and half a second slower than Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
“I’m not saying I’m relieved,” Hamilton said. “But I’m generally really happy today. Given how we’ve been the last few weeks, the struggles we’ve had and the problems we’ve had with the car, it’s a bit of a nightmare to drive.”
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“We’ve just kept our heads down, kept working away and I’m proud of everyone for just staying positive. To get fifth in quali, those guys ahead of us are in another league. So I’m generally happy with where we are. It’s not the front row, but we will make improvements and do the best we can tomorrow,” the seven-time champion added.
Hamilton doubts he will have the race pace to challenge the Ferraris and Red Bulls and has already ruled Mercedes out of contention for victories early in the season. “Those guys will be going away,” he said.
“They were a second ahead of us yesterday through race pace, so my battle is with the guys behind most likely. Of course I’ll try to be as fast as I can and get ahead, but as I said their performance is quite ahead of ours.”
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George Russell, Hamilton’s new teammate, finished ninth after locking up at Turn 1 on his only Q3 lap on fresh soft tyres. “We only had one set of tyres, I really pushed on my out lap, I got to Turn 1 and I just had no grip,” the new Mercedes man said.
“I went one second slower than I did in Q2 and I was expecting to go a couple of seconds faster. It was a real shame, I’m glad I tried something but it’s easy in retrospect. We know we’re not where we want to be. P9 is much lower down on where the car is. We’re doing everything we can to try get the car back up front fighting the Ferraris and the Red Bulls. Not ideal but the race day is tomorrow.”
