Lewis Hamilton now makes ‘painful’ Mercedes admission as F1 ‘wish’ outlined

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Lewis Hamilton has now made a ‘painful’ admission about Mercedes and outlined the team’s one ‘wish’ for Formula 1 after a tough Italian Grand Prix at Monza last Sunday.

The seven-time F1 champion could only finish P6 at the 14th round of the season with Silver Arrows teammate, George Russell, in P5. Hamilton also crossed the line a distant 19 seconds from his Mercedes partner. While Max Verstappen won the race 42 seconds down the road.

Hamilton left himself facing a challenging Grand Prix after qualifying in just P8. Russel ended the running on Saturday with the fourth-fastest time in Q3. But Sergio Perez got past the 25-year-old to secure a Red Bull one-two ahead of Ferrari pair Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.

Lewis Hamilton now brands Mercedes’ Italian GP deficit ‘painful’

Mercedes attempted to improve Hamilton’s chances of scoring a better finish by starting on the hard compound tyres. He was one of only three drivers to attempt the strategy. But they scrapped the idea just 27 laps into the race and made Hamilton run to the end on mediums.

The Stevenage-born star managed his tyres through to the finish whilst overtaking Fernando Alonso, Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris and Alex Albon. Although contact with Piastri’s McLaren into Variante della Roggia drew a five-second time penalty that contributed to his big deficit.

Lewis Hamilton accepts he must ‘do better’ in one area in Formula 1

But it was not the Mercedes driver’s five-second time penalty that Hamilton found toughest to accept at the Italian GP. Instead, the Briton admits that the deficit the Silver Arrows faced to Red Bull and Ferrari around Monza was ‘painful’ as they clearly had the third-fastest car.

Now, Hamilton admits that Mercedes are ‘counting down the days’ until the Brackley-based squad can unveil their car for the 2024 F1 season. Yet, in the meantime, he also accepts that he must improve his qualifying results having also claimed just P13 for the Dutch Grand Prix.

“Races are pretty straightforward for me,” Hamilton said, via quotes by Autosport. “I’ve just got to do better in qualifying, so it’s not such a difficult day. And just living with the car that we have at the moment.

“Today, [it] is the third fastest car and it’s obviously painful for all of us. We wish we were quicker. But we’re just counting down the days until February.”