Formula 1 driver Daniel Ricciardo believes there are drivers on the grid who can give Lewis Hamilton a run for his money in the Mercedes car.
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Formula 1 driver Daniel Ricciardo believes there are drivers on the grid who can give Lewis Hamilton a run for his money in the Mercedes car. The McLaren driver also added that Bottas doesn’t quite give Hamilton enough competition “To answer it diplomatically, I think Lewis isn’t the only one that could win races in that car,” Ricciardo told Square Mile. “That’s obviously my opinion and I think that George Russell, in a way, showed the possibility of that by pretty much beating Valtteri (Bottas) in his first race.
So you could argue that just maybe Lewis doesn’t have the strongest competition.”
However, Daniel Ricciardo was quick to add that very few drivers have the kind of high-pressure experience that the British driver does.
“I think, where we can’t be too aggressive or disrespectful to Lewis, is that, do a few of us believe we could beat him? Yes. I’m quite sure of that.
“But none of us have ever been in the hunt for a title. None of us have dealt with that pressure. None of us have had that year after year. Pretty much every weekend he rocks up to a race.
“Yes, he has the best car, but he’s also expected to win all the time. And if he doesn’t, it’s, ‘OK, what happened to Lewis?'”
Hamilton won the season opener in Bahrain in late March. However, he had to beat off stiff competition from Max Verstappen to do so.
Verstappen had managed to overtake Hamilton towards the end of the race but having done so outside of the race track, was ordered to give the position back.
Nevertheless, there remains an expectation that Red Bull will challenge Mercedes for the title this year. Their car was the fastest in pre-season testing and qualifying at Bahrain.
