Hamilton expects no short-term Mercedes fix, rivals ‘a long way ahead’

Lewis Hamilton foresees no short-term fix to the porpoising issues blighting Mercedes in the early stages of the 2022 Formula 1 season.

The seven-time world champion was only ninth fastest and 1.2secs off the pace set by Max Verstappen in second practice at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Friday.

Some of that gap was caused by front brake glazing and DRS problems, but the porpoising, which is the bouncing effect seen on the straights, is the main factor currently limiting Mercedes’ pace the most.

“As you can see, we are a long way off. We are not bluffing like people assumed we were,” Hamilton told the media post-session.

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“We will work as hard as we can through it and do what we can, but we can’t really do anything because this is the car. I can try and improve the setup but that’s not the issue.

“I’m just realistic – we won’t be in the race for a win here. If you look at Red Bull they are a long way ahead,” he added.

“It’s in the region of eight or nine-tenths ahead of us and Ferrari are something like five or six tenths ahead of us, so we are fighting and scrapping with whoever is behind them.”

With Hamilton then already writing off this weekend, he admits it could be even longer before Mercedes is back in the fight for victories.

“We had smaller problems in the car [last year], relatively, compared to this year,” he said.

“We are faced with much, much bigger problems this year and everything we do to try and fix it doesn’t really change that.

“It appears it is going to be a longer-term fix so nothing in the short-term.”

Mercedes teammate George Russell did offer some hope in fifth only half a second behind Verstappen, but Hamilton couldn’t explain the gap.

“I don’t know, I haven’t been looking at George’s car,” he replied.

“We were trialling different things but I have not been following what he has been doing. I focus on the problems I have on my side.”

As for Russell, he echoed Lewis’ comments suggesting Mercedes could be firmly in a very compact midfield behind the top two teams.

“I think it’s clear that it’s all about lap time and we are certainly aren’t where we want to be,” said the former Williams man.

“We have made a bit of progress solving some issues but the pace is not there at all at the moment.

“We need to go over the data tonight to understand where we are struggling with the car.

“We are a long way off the pace of Red Bull, Ferrari and the likes of AlphaTauri, Alfa Romeo are seemingly on our pace or even quicker.”

Russell was remaining optimistic that, once unlocked, Mercedes does have the potential to compete.

“We are not happy with the car, but we can find something,” he continued.

“It is a bit windier than it was last week and I think that caught us by surprise. We did things to improve the car but there are a lot of factors that we are throwing at it to extract the performance we know is there.

“It will take time. We hoped to solve it this weekend but we are not in the fight. We still have a race weekend and we need to make the best of this situation. Maybe damage limitation.”