Lewis Hamilton waves the white flag in his pursuit of Sergio Perez in the championship standings

Lewis Hamilton has hinted that chasing for second place in the drivers' championship table is almost impossible at the moment. The seven-time world champion is currently only 32 points behind Sergio Perez, who is in second place.

Speaking in the drivers' press conference ahead of the 2023 F1 Las Vegas GP, Lewis Hamilton pointed out that Sergio Perez is too far ahead in the table, especially considering that there are only two races left in the season. The Mercedes driver said:

“He’s too far away now. 30 points in two races, he’d have to have two disasters and I’d have to be 2nd, basically.”

Furthermore, Lewis Hamilton looked at the season in hindsight and said that he was satisfied with it, despite having a poor car. He is surprised that he is still fighting for second place in the drivers' championship against a car that he claims to be the most dominant in recent history.

He said:

“Honestly it really doesn’t make any difference if I’m 2nd or 3rd. I think we’ve still had an amazing year, given the car that we’ve had. We never thought that we’d be fighting for 2nd in the Constructors’ and knocking on the door of the most dominant car probably of our era.”

Hamilton is currently third in the table with 226 points, while Sergio Perez is second with 258 points. If Perez has two horrendous races in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi, the Briton will have a small chance of securing second place at the end of the season.

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Lewis Hamilton opens up on possible weaknesses in Mercedes W14

Since Lewis Hamilton has been in F1 for quite some time, he is well aware of where a car is lacking. Speaking about the Mercedes W14, he claimed that the floor of the car is not working as intended.

As quoted by PlanetF1, Hamilton said:

"My guess is that the floor is not working. The floor is not sucking it down so that pushed us to go to a higher wing, and then we’re just massively draggy on the straights."

Hamilton added:

"And we’re losing so much time on the straights, there’s nothing I can do about it, and then we’re just sliding through the corners. So we have to look into why that is the case on this rough circuit."

The lack of straight-line speed was clearly visible in the 2023 F1 Brazilian GP, where both the Mercedes cars struggled to secure a position on the main start-finish straight.