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Former Red Bull driver Christian Klien was unimpressed with Lewis Hamilton's and Mercedes' performance at the 2024 F1 Saudi Arabian GP.
Speaking to RacingNews365, Klien stated that the Mercedes W15 looked the same as last year's car. He also criticized the team for not figuring out why the car was slow on a high-speed track like Jeddah. Klien said:
"Mercedes were disappointing again. It feels like the same as last year and the year before, like they don't understand their car. In the high-speed corners, they didn't understand why they were losing time, for example. They started well at the weekend but it seemed like they got slower and slower over the weekend compared to the others."
Christian Klien also praised Red Bull for being in their own league and dominating the Saudi Arabian GP. He felt that both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez did not even need to push the car to its limits.
"They are still in their own league. I think everyone was hoping a little that it would get closer in Jeddah with more high-speed corners. But the Red Bull just works there and it almost felt even more dominant in pure race pace. Both were playing at the front and if you look at the body language of the cars, I don't think either were at the limit like the others."
In the first two races of the 2024 F1 season, Mercedes looked like the third or fourth fastest team on the grid, below Red Bull and Ferrari.
Lewis Hamilton explained Mercedes' failed strategy at the 2024 F1 Saudi Arabian GP
After a poor performance at the 2024 F1 Saudi Arabian GP, Lewis Hamilton explained how Mercedes was rooting for a safety car during the race, which could have helped him move up the grid. Speaking to Sportskeeda, he said:
“Just, we didn't get a safety car at the end, and that was, we're trying to stay out and banking for that, but there was not a lot of dig between the medium and the hards. So once we lost that 20 seconds, it's hard to recover that.”
Lewis Hamilton had a rough race weekend in Saudi Arabia, where he finished P9 in the race. His teammate George Russell also had a subpar performance and had to settle for P6.
