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Four-time world champion Lewis Hamilton believes that Ferrari has not yet shown its true pace. At the season-opening Australian Grand Prix just over a week ago, Sebastian Vettel won the race for the Italian team after jumping Hamilton under a virtual car.
However, before taking the lead, Vettel was running in third place behind Hamilton and teammate Kimi Raikkonen. Despite being under pressure from Raikkonen more than Vettel, Hamilton was thinking that his race was against the German while he was leading.
"Everyone's talking about our 'party mode' and how much quicker we are [but Raikkonen] was very quick in the first stint it – was not easy at all to pull away from him," said Hamilton. "In my mind I was racing Sebastian.
"The Ferraris are always going to play one off the other; there's two of them. They've got two aces or whatever, two jokers. You pit one guy which forces you to protect yourself on the undercut, but the other guy's in the clear and in my mind I was like, 'Just look out for number three' as that's who I think I was racing."
Next up on the calendar is Bahrain, where twelve months ago, Mercedes lost out to Ferrari. Hamilton fully believes that the Silver Arrows can come back from the disappointment in Melbourne and claim a result in the desert.
"Everyone in the team is feeling it, but there's been so much great work, so much positivity to take forward with us. We've got a great car and we are still the world champions and with a couple of adjustments we can win the next race. I believe that."
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
66 members have this team as their favourite
Replies (9)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Hhahahaha, oooh Hammy. Silly, silly Hammy. You fill my heart with rainbows! :3
Jutlandia
Posts: 191
Yep, Bling-Bling Hamilton is on it again.
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
I'm tired of this "your car is faster than mine" charade. First of all, Mercedes shouldn't be apologetic about having produced an incredible machine once again. Second, I suppose Lewis is trying to minize Mercedes' superiority so that his poles, wins, and championship are not somewhat tarnished like Sebastian's were. I'm amazed to see how many on the grid have a comparatively low opinion of Sebastian.
xoya
Posts: 583
Vettel has proven, time and again, that he is not that good when not in the lead, hence the low opinion on him.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
True but who is? Hammy has proven time and time again that if he isnt in the best car, he isnt capable of winning championships. As has Vettel, unless he break that trend this year (although to be fair he was pretty close last year... Yet Hammy came out of that season smelling like oil burning roses).
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
@XOYA I see your point as many on the grid do. But passions aside, I think it's pretty silly to argue that Vettel is a top 4/5 driver. I actually think he's a substantially better driver than he was when driving at Red Bull. But just for fun, I did a comparison Alonso vs Raikkonen and Vettel vs. Raikkonen at Ferrari.
In 2013 and 2014 Alonso scored 57% (242 against 183) and 75% (161 against 55) respectively of the total points for Ferrari. In 2015-2017 Vettel scored 65% (278 against 150), 53% (212 against 186), 61% (317 against 205) respectively.
On average vs Raikkonen, Alonso scored 66% of total points and Vettel 60%. This very superficial analysis I'd argue suggests a few things (1) Raikkonen's performance has been dreadful, (2) Vettel compares fairly well against another top driver like Alonso, (3) albeit considering that (a) Raikkonen is probably getting worse and worse not better, thus potentially skewing the results making Vettel look a bit better and (b) that arguably the Ferrari was a comparatively better car in the Vettel years from 2015-2017 than in 2013-2014.
Alright, enough of the geeky analysis.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Yeah, I hold firm that I think Vettel is the best driver (as a whole package, so driving+development+the rest) on the grid. I think we saw glimpses of that last year... Either that or Kimi was slacking off (and while I sadly think Kimi should retire, I dont think he is that terrible).
And APJ, you may proceed with your geeky stuff.
mcbhargav
Posts: 1,332
Do they teach this during the induction at Mercedes?
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Your comment made me picture Toto standing by a whiteboard in a classroom, telling small Mercedes juniors to repeat "our car is not the best" over and over again!