F1 | Mercedes, Hamilton: “Those guys up front are on another level”

The much proclaimed difficulties have been confirmed. Mercedes is struggling and Lewis Hamilton was unable to do better than fifth place in qualifying in Sakhir, and will therefore start from the third row tomorrow in the Bahrain Grand Prix, the first race of the 2022 Formula 1 world championship. The W13 suffers compared to Red Bull and Ferrari, and will also have to watch out for the return of those powered by the Maranello power unit, starting with former teammate Valtteri Bottas.

“The session was tough, but I'm proud of what we managed to do given the problems of the last week – Hamilton said. Those guys up front are on another level at the moment, but tomorrow there's a lot to play with strategy, so hopefully I can at least fight with them. We're not fast enough to win, but I already said that before this weekend. In the tests we seemed to struggle more, we improved some things and we are closer, so I'm proud of that. I hope that next week we will be able to make further steps forward, and little by little we will go after the guys in front. The improvements come from our efforts, we are working as hard as we can and I know it will be a long road, but I love these challenges."