Lewis Hamilton has opened up about his dissatisfaction with Mercedes, saying that his car still doesn’t feel “100%” going into the 2023 summer break.
This year has marked a real downturn for the Silver Arrows who have struggled to conform to new regulations.
This failure to evolve partly explains why they only won a single race in 2022 – marking the first year Hamilton failed to win a single Grand Prix in a calendar year in his entire F1 career.
Red Bull and Max Verstappen have risen to prominence since 2021, with Verstappen easing to victory in the Austrian GP to secure a fifth consecutive F1 win.
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The Austrian team has won all eight major races of the season so far in Formula 1.
Hamilton has achieved moderate success, grabbing podium finishes in Catalunya and Montreal – but this is still a far cry from the success the seven-time world champion is used to.
He says that his car does not handle well, a fact which was once again emphasised during Sunday’s Grand Prix.
When his team warned him about risking penalties on turn 10 of the Spielberg Red Bull Ring, Hamilton replied: “I can’t keep it on the track, the car won’t turn.”
Even team principal Toto Wolff seemed to acknowledge the car was at fault.
He came to the pit wall to tell Hamilton: “Lewis, the car is bad, we know. Please drive it!”
After the race, he told reporters: “I’ve not been happy in the car for the past year and a bit.”
However, Hamilton did concede that improvements had been made by the Mercedes team over the course of this season.
He commented: “The step we took has moved it more in the direction I’ve been asking for. Slowly we’re rebuilding confidence in the platform I have.
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“It’s still not 100%. I’m still not able to extract full potential from myself but we’re getting there. You’re just limited.
“The stability of the car and the confidence of where you can put the car. You saw last year I crashed here and so did George.”
There has been a delay in contract talks between Hamilton and Mercedes, with the British driver in the final year of his deal with the Silver Arrows.