Lewis Hamilton Can’t Fathom Beating Max Verstappen at Suzuka Despite “Really Good” Mercedes Challenger

With Friday’s wet FP2 ending pretty well for Silver Arrows, the team must have had great expectations for Saturday’s qualifying. Sadly, the session didn’t go as planned. Hamilton’s best lap in Q3 was almost a second off Max Verstappen’s pole lap. Eventually, Lewis ended his Saturday outing with P6, whereas his teammate George Russell could only manage a P8.

Talking about the goods and bads of his W13, Hamilton, a five-time winner (2007, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018) at Suzuka, said, “We were losing a lot of time on the straights but the car was feeling really good throughout the rest of the lap.”

Being the experienced driver he is, Lewis Hamilton, looking back at his qualifying run, made some well-calculated observations that can very well be the problem statement for the Silver arrows camp for the Japanese Grand Prix.

He said, “I think that’s a real reach, to try and say we can get a win.”

“Those guys are nine-tenths ahead, you don’t go from being nine-tenths behind in qualifying to winning a race.”

The seven-time world champion opened up about his expectation from the race when he was asked about the possibility of Mercedes getting a win in Japan. As things stand, the 37-year-old shares the record for ‘Most consecutive seasons with at least one win’ with Michael Schumacher. Both legends of the sport are tied at 15 seasons.

Although Hamilton had the chance to break his own record and bring his stat up to 16 this year, till now, he hasn’t had all the help he needs to achieve this prospect. For starters, he could use a challenger that could go head-to-head with the RB18 and F1-75.

READ MORE: Lewis Hamilton Entrusts Mercedes W-13 With 2022 F1 Title Hopes – “My Team Doesn’t Make Mistakes

With the grid set for the Suzuka race, both the Mercedes men will face a challenge from the Alpine duo. While Esteban Ocon starts alongside Hamilton, Fernando Alonso is placed right next to Russell. And knowing the history between the two world champions in this mix, it will surely be an exciting start.

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell facing competition from Alpine

Although they had managed their expectations the right way, Mercedes’ George Russell was left shocked seeing the result. “It’s definitely not where we hoped to be qualifying,” he said.

“We didn’t quite expect to be in the fight with Red Bull and Ferrari, but ahead of this weekend we weren’t expecting to be fighting with Alpine.”

But all is not lost for the Brackley-based outfit. The team really shone in a session where rain played a big role. Hence, with 97% rain predicted for the main race, it would be foolish to overlook Mercedes as a threat on Sunday.

The 24-year-old seems much aware of this, as he concluded by saying, “I think we’ll definitely have better pace tomorrow.”

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Will either of the Mercedes driver be able to end their drought?