Lewis Hamilton admitted Mercedes are “further back to the Red Bull than we thought we were” after the opening race of the season in Bahrain.
Hamilton started ninth on the grid for the first race of the year and finished seventh, two places behind team mate George Russell.
With rivals Red Bull scoring a one-two and Russell in the leading Mercedes finishing 46 seconds behind winner Max Verstappen, Hamilton admits Mercedes thought they would be closer to the world champions this weekend.
“I think we probably feel a little bit of disappointment within the team,” Hamilton told Sky after the race. “I was definitely hoping we would be better this weekend than we were.
“It was a tough race. It’s very close with everybody. Degradation is, obviously, high with the car. There’s definitely plenty of areas in which we can improve. We’re obviously further back to the Red Bulls than we thought we were as well.”
Despite sacrificing his qualifying performance on Friday with a set-up that was supposedly more suited to the race, Hamilton failed to find the gains he was hoping for in the grand prix.
“I mean, the car’s reliable, but I think it was a struggle in the car today,” he admitted.
“I was giving everything, but there wasn’t a lot of performance there compared to some of the others ahead of us. I think if I qualified better, I naturally would have been a good couple of places ahead, because the last stint was good. So it was about discovery today. I found out a lot about the car and there’s a lot that we can improve on I’m sure the team will.”
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Both Hamilton and team mate Russell were asked to lift-and-coast during the race in order to try and manage power unit temperatures. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says that did not explain their performance deficit to their rivals.
“It’s a weird one, because the cooling cost us quite a lot,” Wolff said.
“The moment you need to lift-and-coast, the tyres are not in the right window anymore and then everything goes south. But that’s something we understand. But nevertheless, the pace was worse than we expected.”
While the Bahrain circuit is widely considered as having unconventional characteristics compared to other tracks in the early phase of the calendar, Wolff believes the team’s performance in Bahrain accurately reflects their standing.
“Given the issues, I think this is where we are,” he said. “Third-quickest team behind the…
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