Lewis Hamilton Doubts He’ll Be in Running for Wins at Start of F1 Season

Mercedes has won the last three season openers, but there is real concern that they will not be in contention at Bahrain this campaign.

Despite the back-and-forth battle for the World Champion title last season, Lewis Hamilton played down his chances of fighting for wins early on in the upcoming Formula One season after preseason testing ended on Saturday. 

During the three days of testing in Bahrain, Hamilton and Mercedes seemed to falter compared to Red Bull and Ferrari, who both showed a more promising pace. Mercedes has won the last eight constructors’ championships. 

Remember: testing times can be skewed during the preseason in the overall competitive picture. It's led some to wonder if Mercedes is intentionally holding back on lap times ahead of the Bahrain GP next week. Last season they appeared to struggle during the three days of testing only to win the following week. However, the British driver insisted the faltering was real. 

“It is too early to have those kind of thoughts about the world championship, but at the moment I don’t think we will be competing for wins,” the seven-time champion said after finishing 78 laps on Saturday morning. “There is potential within our car to get us there. We’ve just got to learn to be able to extract it and fix some of the problems, which is what we’re working on.”

Over the course of the last three seasons, a Mercedes driver has won the opening race. But this campaign, they might not be in contention. 

“We're not the quickest at the moment,” he said during a press conference on Saturday. “Ferrari looks to be the quickest and perhaps Red Bull, and then maybe us or McLaren.

“I don't know, but we're certainly not at the top.”

Hamilton does not think a quick turnaround will happen with the first race in Bahrain being on March 20, just over a week away. Remember, Formula One released new technical regulations this season, and Mercedes re-configured its sidepod, which looks different than any other team on the grid. 

“It feels a lot different,” he said. “It's not as good, I don't think it's going to look as it did last year with the difficult session we had in testing and then switch over into the race.

“I think we have far bigger challenges this time and there not one-week turnarounds, they'll take a little bit longer. But from what I told, we have a considerable amount of pace to find.”