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Lewis Hamilton believes it’s important for Mercedes to be realistic when it comes to clinching a victory in the 2022 season. The Briton felt a victory would be difficult unless Red Bull or Ferrari were unsuccessful in a race.
Speaking at a post-race press conference after the USGP, Lewis Hamilton said:
“I think we really need to be realistic. The Red Bull car has been the fastest car by far all year. And it is still the fastest car. So today, we were… you know we're in the position we're in through a lot of the races, through reliability. You know if Charles was there, if Pérez was there, for example, it would have been a different race, because they would have been ahead of us, we would have been on the third row.
He continued:
And so, I think today it was great to have started third and been in position to fight, but out of true pace, they've been ahead of us all weekend. They were today and they will be the next three races. So, unless something drastic happens to any more of them, for example, then it's highly unlikely that we will have the true pace to be able to compete with them. But we'll give it everything we've got.”
Given Red Bull’s dominant pace and Ferrari’s superiority to Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton believes it’s essential to be realistic about their performance. The Briton felt his car did not have as quick a pace as his rivals, which disadvantaged them severely in terms of clinching a win. The Briton has lost two races to Red Bull, one in Zandvoort and one in Austin. He feels it is unlikely his team can win a race at pure pace unless there are exceptional circumstances where his rivals are unfortunate.
Lewis Hamilton is positive Mercedes has made strides in terms of performance in Austin
Despite the second-place finish, the British champion feels Mercedes has made progress on their car in terms of performance. Praising the team effort at the USGP weekend, the seven-time world champion felt his team was quick to react to Max Verstappen’s 11-second pit stop and aid him with a strategy to win the podium. However, Lewis Hamilton felt that their car still lacked the dominant pace of the Red Bull to fight them towards the end.
Explaining the progress made by his team, the Mercedes driver said:
“We're working on making a car that can fight with them. But I think today shows that our teamwork was fantastic. I think, as a team, we operated amazing. I mean, he had an 11-second stop, and he was behind Charles, that just shows how much pace they had in hand, to have got past Charles, and to have caught up six seconds, and pulled three seconds ahead of me at least, that shows some serious speed. So, you know… but there's lots of positives, as I’ve said. Honestly, I think this was our best… this one was probably one of our best.”
According to the Mercedes champion, there are positives to the takeaway from the USGP, and it was probably their team’s best weekend. However, Lewis Hamilton is yet to win a race in the 2022 season, and the Briton has never had a season in his F1 career without a win. With three more race weekends, it will be interesting to see if he is unable to end the winless streak.
