Mercedes F1 and Lewis Hamilton Resign to ‘Damage Limitation’ for Bahrain GP as W13 Faces Hiccups

7-time champion Lewis Hamilton has been consistently vocal about his concerns with the new car. While, initially, Mercedes was expected to be on top with the new design, their performances say otherwise.

Lewis suffered a tough loss against rival Max Verstappen in a car that seemed far superior to the W13. As the Mercedes driver eagerly awaits a record breaking eighth title, it seems like he might have to wait more.

Lewis Hamilton tries to brave through it all

The pre-season testing and practice sessions have proven dreadful for Mercedes. The Brackley team could not optimize their performance and constantly struggled with ‘porpoising’ and recently, some brake issues. While their design looked solid, and the “sidepodless” look astonished many, their performance was not up to the mark.

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Lewis Hamilton has recently voiced some of his opinions regarding the car. He stated, “Compared to this year we’ve had much, much smaller problems in the past. We’re faced with much, much bigger problems this year,”

“And everything we do to try and kind of fix it doesn’t really change that. It appears there’s probably going to be a more longer-term fix, so nothing in the short term.”

The Silver Arrows’ star also revealed that the car might be a midfield dragger. He backed his claim, “I think it’s clear from the lap time we’re certainly not where we want to be,” he added. “I think we made a bit of progress solving some issues, but the pace is not there at all at the moment.

“We’re a long way off the pace of Red Bull, Ferrari. Even the likes of Alfa Romeo and AlphaTauri seem on our pace or even quicker, so we’ve got a bit of work to do.”

“I think the high fuel pace is a bit more representative and we were consistently over a second slower than where our rivals are.

“We still have race weekend on our hands, and we still need to make the best of this situation and maybe damage limitation, but we need to look into it.” He further added.

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Lewis’ new teammate George Russell also backed the driver and had his own opinions of the car. Overall, we might not see Mercedes competing at the top at least at the start of the season. Mercedes will have to amp it up big time to compete with rivals as the season progresses.