Mercedes-Benz

LEWIS HAMILTON has offered a bleak assessment of Mercedes’ chances this season.That’s after his team’s dreadful start to the new Formula One campaign.
Lewis Hamilton has downplayed Mercedes’ hopes at winning the new F1 seasonCredit: AP
Seven-time world champion Hamilton was hoping to make up for last term with a quick start at the opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
But he was way off the pace with a fifth-place finish as champion Max Verstappen took gold.
Teammate George Russell could only come seventh as their Mercedes cars lagged behind.
And team chiefs have reportedly demanded to see an immediate improvement in performance.
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Mercedes will now be hoping for a faster showing at this weekend’s GP in Saudi Arabia.
But Hamilton reckons his team stand no chance of catching Verstappen’s Red Bull, with Ferrari the only rival in the running.
He said: “In the race [in Bahrain] they [Red Bull] were not pushing so they were a lot quicker than they seemed.
“They are a second-and-a-half a lap faster in the race. They will run away with it this year unless Ferrari can stop them.”
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Indeed, earlier this month Hamilton revealed he warned Mercedes they were miles off the pace last year.
He said:  “Last year, I told them the issues that are with the car.
“Like, I’ve driven so many cars in my life, so I know what a car needs, I know what a car doesn’t need.
“And I think it’s really about accountability, it’s about owning up and saying ‘yeah, you know what, we didn’t listen to you, it’s not where it needs to be and we’ve got to work’.
“We’ve got to look into the balance through the corners, look at all the weak points and just huddle up as a team, that’s what we do.
“We’re still multi world champions you know, it’s just they haven’t got it right this time, they didn’t get it right last year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get it right moving forwards.” More

LEWIS HAMILTON will not quit Mercedes and could turn his woes around to win his eighth world title, according to a former team-mate.The British racing legend, 38, wrapped up his seventh world title in 2020.
Lewis Hamilton suffered a nightmare start to the 2023 seasonCredit: PA
But a heartbreaking rule gaffe in 2021 denied him on the final lap of the Formula One crown, and that was followed by a nightmare car in 2022 that left him well off the pace set by back-to-back champion Max Verstappen.
The 2023 season started in nightmare fashion for Hamilton, with another car that appears well below the standards set by Red Bull and Ferrari – and even Aston Martin.
The Stevenage star is desperate to be world champ for a record-breaking eighth time – and reports suggest he could be tempted to switch to a rival team in order to reach his goal.
But Heikki Kovalainen believes his pal Hamilton will not make the switch and instead predicts him to stay put with the Silver Arrows despite the problems.
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The Finn, who drove alongside Hamilton at McLaren in 2008 and 2009, told the Mirror: “Personally, I don’t see that coming – to me, he’s committed to Mercedes.
“I met him in Hungary last year and we had a good chat there.
“Without going into detail of what was said in a private conversation, the body language and the feel I got from him, I just felt that this is something that he wants to turn around.”
Kovalainen, 41, continued: “He wants to turn things around for Mercedes and that’s going to tick another box on his resume – to show that it’s not that he’s only been driving good cars and making the most of the good cars, but that he can actually turn a struggling team around and lead that team.
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“That’s the reason why I’m thinking he’s not going to change. I feel he wants to turn this thing around with Mercedes and then he can show the world that he can turn a struggling team into a winning team again.
“It’s going to be exciting to watch and I 100 per cent believe he has the skill and the will.
“If anyone, he can probably do it.”
Hamilton is back in action at the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix this weekend.
The race at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit gets underway at 5pm UK time on Sunday.
Hamilton was team-mates with Heikki Kovalainen in 2008 and 2009Credit: Getty More

TOTO WOLFF has been labelled “disingenuous” and “crass” for openly criticising this year’s Mercedes.Wolff took the unusual step of writing off this year’s new design after just 60 minutes of qualifying in Bahrain.
Mercedes struggled on the opening weekend in BahrainCredit: AP
Lewis Hamilton, left, alongside Wolff, centre, and George RussellCredit: AFP
He claimed that the team had made an error by producing this year’s car, which lacked the pace of the Red Bulls, Ferraris and Aston Martins.
The Austrian promised to “sit down with the engineers and be totally non-dogmatic” as they aim to get back to winning ways.
But former F1 boss Eddie Jordan is adamant that Wolff should take the blame – not his team of designers.
He said: “He’s the CEO, he’s the boss. The buck stops with him. This is happening under his watch.
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“To blame or criticise anybody in his design team is actually disingenuous. It’s really crass.
“I hate to hear that, because he must be a man, stand up and take it on the chin and say, ‘my team, my people, we have failed to get the job successfully done at this moment. However, there are times ahead that we’re looking forward to and we will be there much stronger than we were in 2022’.
“I think that Toto is strong enough, big enough and man enough to front this up and actually sort it out.”
Meanwhile, F1 chiefs are not in talks to hold a race in London – despite contradictory claims from a property developer.
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Plans have been drawn up to show a vast sports, leisure and entertainment complex in the Docklands area on the east side of London.
The developers have used F1 logos and associated brands in their images, however an F1 spokesman says they have not been sent any proposals or had any discussions with the developers who are trying to gain publicity.
The ambitious plans suggest the proposed track had 22 corners and had floating grandstands on the Thames that could cater for 95,000 spectators.
Silverstone is the only UK venue on the F1 calendar and has a contract in place until 2024. More

LEWIS HAMILTON’S Mercedes are planning radical changes to their car after just ONE race in the Formula One season.Seven-time F1 world champion Hamilton started the campaign in disappointing fashion nine days ago.
Mercedes are planning changes to their car after just one F1 raceCredit: AP
Lewis Hamilton started the season in disappointing fashion in Bahrain for MercCredit: PA
The 38-year-old could only finish sixth in Bahrain as rival Max Verstappen romped to victory for Red Bull.
Mercedes already had concerns about their W14 design, which is an evolved version of their “no-sidepod” one from last season which caused numerous issues as the team missed out on an eighth-consecutive constructors’ championships. 
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff wants his development team to reproduce a “radical” new design following the “worst weekend of racing” at the Sakhir Circuit.
And he added that they needed to be bold with future updates, amid questions over their “zero sidepod” design.
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Now Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin opened up about what’s next during an interview Formula1.com.
He said: “People have tended to use the word ‘concept’ when they mean the sidepod design, and Toto had said recently that we are looking at a revision that is going to come along in the next few races anyway.
“Given the gap to the front, of course we are going to look at bigger departures and more radical changes. But those changes take time to turn into a faster solution in the wind tunnel – you can’t do them overnight.
“There is quite a lot of development that you’ve got to do around any sort of big change in geometry in that area.
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“Of course, we are looking at where we can improve the car, we are looking for potential to develop and you will see visible changes coming on the car over the next few races.”
Shovlin also highlighted significant tyre degradation as a major concern after Bahrain as well as the car’s general lack pace.
He added: “Ultimately, we’ve got a lot of work to do. That gap in qualifying was quite large; we were over half a second to the front. In the race that was even bigger.
“That was compounded by the fact that when you get the tyre degradation, you get a bit more sliding, the tyres run hotter, and you end up finding it very difficult to keep them under any kind of control.
“There is a lot that we need to understand but the key things are really getting on top of that long run degradation, which last year was a strong point for us.
“Clearly, we’ve got something that’s not in the right place that we need to work on, but ultimately the other thing is that performance gap to the front. The raw pace of the car is not good enough.
“We are working very hard at the moment to understand what we can do in the short-term future and in the mid-term future to try and get ourselves in a better place.” More