Lewis Hamilton: At the moment we are way behind

Lewis Hamilton started seventh in Bahrain, overtook teammate George Russell during the race, moved up one more place thanks to the retirement of Charles Leclerc, but couldn’t hold back Fernando Alonso and finished fifth. On Sunday night, the Mercedes driver acknowledged a serious backlog from his rivals, but assured he was ready to go after the team.

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘worried’ to describe our situation,” Lewis Hamilton said after the finish of the Bahrain Grand Prix. “I don’t want to say anything superfluous, but we have to keep working. The team knows that we are not at all in the positions we want to be, and we know that the car is far from ideal.

I have to stay positive, never give up and motivate the team. In such a situation, it is very important to show the team the right attitude – I will do everything in my power.

At the moment we are way behind. If Ferrari hadn’t retired I would have finished sixth at best, so there’s no fighting for the podium.”

Lewis said Mercedes had problems with severe rubber degradation: “In general, the rubber degradation situation repeats last year. In the morning when the team and I were discussing strategy for the race, I told the guys that we wouldn’t be able to finish as high as they predicted. And so it happened.

We have a lot of work ahead of us. The car lacks downforce and it takes time to solve this problem. As soon as we get more pressure in the back and in the front of the car, our speed will increase.”

Commenting on the fight with Fernando Alonso, the seven-time world champion said: “For a while it was fun. In terms of race speed, Fernando was in a different class. I loved our fight, but I knew he would catch up with me.

I congratulate Fernando – he did a great job. It’s great to see him and the whole Aston Martin team doing a good job. We have a lot of work to do, because half of their car is ours, because they worked in our wind tunnel. We have something to work on.”