After losing yesterday’s United States Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton said it was unlikely that Mercedes would end their winless streak before the end of the season.
After losing out to Max Verstappen at a slow pit stop, he ran second for most of yesterday’s race and led for nine laps. But the Red Bull driver was able to pass him easily and took the final six laps to win by five seconds.
“They have to be realistic,” Hamilton said of Mercedes’ chances of winning. “The Red Bull car has been a fast car all year round and is still a very fast car.”
Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez were promoted to the grid from fifth qualifying due to grid penalties due to power unit component changes. Hamilton found another place when team-mate George Russell collided with Carlos Sainz Jr’s Ferrari at the start.
“We were in a safe position today,” Hamilton said. “If Charles had been there, if Perez had been there, for example, it would have been a different race because they would have been ahead of us, we would have been in the third row.”
He expects Ferrari and Red Bull to maintain dominance in the remaining races.
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“It was great today to start third and be in a position to fight. But they were ahead of the real pace all weekend and were today and will be the next three races.
“So unless something serious happens to them, for example, it doesn’t mean we can’t have the right speed to compete with them. But we give it all we got. We are working on making a car that can fight with them.
The Mercedes pit crew thanked Verstappen for taking the lead after a gradual tire change.
“Today shows our teamwork was fantastic,” he said. I think we did a fantastic job as a team.
He had a stop of 11 seconds and was behind Charles, this shows how fast they have to pass Charles and with six seconds they pull at least three seconds in front of me, this shows some serious speed. But like I said, there are a lot of positives.
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2022 United States Grand Prix
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