Fernando Alonso has called out Mercedes over their pessimistic comments about the W14 car.
The Brackley-based team has been downbeat since the opening race, with team boss Toto Wolff stating they took the wrong direction in continuing with their ‘zeropod’ concept and Lewis Hamilton even suggested Mercedes had not listened to his feedback.
As a result, the seven-time world champion says he feels “disconnected” from this year’s Black Arrow and isn’t enjoying being behind the wheel.
“I don’t like driving not great cars,” Hamilton told Fox. “I don’t like driving a car that’s not the car we weren’t meant to have but I love that challenge of ‘OK, what can I do with it?
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“Wins are not possible right now, so what is the maximum we can get? Can we be a little cheeky and if a fifth is the best we can get, can we get a fourth or a third?
“Just make sure we are consistent and fit and ready so when the car does all of a sudden switch on and it is the car you dreamed of having, you’re ready.”
Yet despite this, Mercedes still has one of the best cars on the grid, in fact, only the conquering RB19 was faster at the last race in Australia.
But as Alonso noted, you’d never think that listening to the team.
“If you read their comments, it seems that they have a car that is not in Q3, but I don’t think that is that bad,” he said.
“It’s not as good as Red Bull – no one has a car close to Red Bull – but they are getting better and they will be a contender for wins soon.
“They did last year and they won a race after a very bad start, so I think this year they are also showing the potential they have.”