Formula 1

F1 News: Hamilton Reveals Mercedes Won’t Be Competing For Wins In 2022

The pre-season testing in Bahrain has not exactly been going to plan for Mercedes with its W13 proving difficult to handle for Hamilton and Russell.

Hamilton has revealed he does not have high hopes for the start of the F1 season next week at the Sakhir Circuit.

When asked on Saturday if he was worried he wouldn’t be in with a chance to fight for the winning spot, he explained:

“Obviously it’s a little bit too early to have those kind of thoughts. But at the moment, I don’t think we’ll be competing for wins.

“But there is a potential within our car to get us there. We have just got to be able to extract it and fix some of the problems, which is what we’re working on.”

This may seem a little familiar to you as Mercedes experienced difficulties at the pre-season tests last year, however surprisingly flipped things around and won the first race.

Hamilton has said that this years issues are going to need more than just tweaking so doesn’t think it’s going to be a repeat of last year.

He said:

“There’s a lot different. It’s not as good… I don’t think we’re going to make it look as good as we did last year with a difficult session we had in practice and then switch over to the race.

“I think we have far bigger challenges this time, and they are not one week turnarounds.

“I think they will take a little bit longer. But from what I’m told we have a considerable amount of pace to find.”

Although it is sounding a little negative at the moment, Hamilton still believes in Mercedes and thinks they will sort the problems out.

“Everyone’s doing such an incredible job back at the factory, working as hard as they can. But we have some hurdles to overcome.

“Obviously next week, we’ll get a much better showing of our pace. But I think people will be surprised maybe.

“People keep talking about us talking ourselves down, but it’s a bit different this year.”

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