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Lewis Hamilton is focusing on race wins in his remaining season with Mercedes however doubts he’ll have the ability to problem for the championship.
After profitable six world championship titles with Mercedes and brought 82 grand prix victories, Hamilton has not received a race for over two years. Whereas Mercedes modified their automobile idea for 2024, Hamilton has scored simply eight factors within the first two rounds of the brand new season, and rivals Purple Bull have continued to dominate.
Nonetheless he believes Mercedes’s newest design can turn into a race winner. “I do assume we’ve a tremendous automobile,” Hamilton advised Sky. “There’s loads of potential in it. I feel we simply haven’t maximised it in the intervening time – by way of set-up, by way of finally errors.
“We have been clearly not proud of the efficiency of these first couple of races. However I feel there’s much more potential in that we simply haven’t fairly extracted but. In order that’s what everybody’s focus is on, simply attempting to grasp the automobile.”
Hamilton says the W15 drives higher than final 12 months’s W14 and has already been improved over the way it drove within the pre-season take a look at in Bahrain on the finish of February.
“There’s positively components that we’ve made massive enhancements with this automobile,” he mentioned. “Simply when it comes to simply typically driving it, it seems like a a lot, a lot better automobile, way more like a race automobile. However it could possibly drop off one finish or the opposite finish. It’s a slim working window with most of these vehicles.”
Regardless of Mercedes failing to complete on the rostrum within the opening two rounds for the second time within the floor impact period, Hamilton says the previous world champions nonetheless have what it takes to win.
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“I do imagine that we’ve nonetheless bought that profitable mindset inside the group,” he mentioned. “I’ve absolute religion that these guys are going to repair any of the issues that we’ve. We are going to get there.”
Nonetheless Hamilton believes Max Verstappen’s early lead within the drivers’ championship will probably put his 2021 title rival out of attain.
“The truth that Max has 50 factors and we solely have eight factors after two races, if you happen to simply assume logically about it – it’s a must to be aware that it’s a really lengthy season additionally so issues can change – however it’s going to be very arduous to catch these guys.
“Their automobile, they drop it on the monitor and it simply works. For us, we’re actually, actually grinding to select up that efficiency and get it to the place we should be.
“The dream and the aim continues to be if we will get wins this 12 months or podiums this 12 months, I feel that might be actually superb. To complete second within the constructors’ [championship] final 12 months, given the problems we had with the automobile, simply reveals what we will do with one thing that’s not even good. So I’m hoping that we will do this once more this 12 months.”
Hamilton says he’s hoping that Mercedes will make “a step ahead” this weekend in Australia.
“There’s an enormous quantity of labor that’s happening,” he mentioned. “Everybody’s heads are down within the numbers.
“I really feel constructive for this weekend. We’ve had two not-such-great races, however there’s a great distance forward.”
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2024 Australian Grand Prix
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