A “not spectacular” Mercedes left Lewis Hamilton feeling “empathy” for those behind him at the French Grand Prix on Friday.
The Brackley-based team arrived in Paul Ricard with many talking up their chances of potentially joining Ferrari and Red Bull in the fight for victory.
However, in a strung-out order at the front, George Russell was three-quarters of a second off the pace set by Carlos Sainz in fourth, two-tenths faster than his seven-time world champion teammate.
“Today we’re in fourth and fifth so that’s kind of the region that we’ll be fighting for,” Hamilton said.
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“I don’t mean that we can’t be on the podium, I think we can still be up there. We’re just still not as quick as those front guys – we’re a little bit further back than we were in the last race.
“The car’s not spectacular here, we don’t know why, but hopefully overnight we can make a bit of a step.”
Asked where Mercedes seemed to be lacking compared to the leaders, Hamilton added: “Just everywhere. It’s just every corner.
“I’m going to have to dig deep into the data, but it just feels like we’re lacking downforce today. But otherwise, it’s okay, I can only have empathy for the guys even further back.
“I think generally this generation of car is definitely nowhere near as good as it used to be in terms of grip and stuff that we had in the past.
“But it also is the first year of this generation so I’m sure it’ll get better over the years. We have work to do, we’re a little bit further behind than we anticipated this weekend.”
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Friday also saw a first as Hamilton, who makes his 300th Grand Prix start this weekend, sat in the garage alongside team boss Toto Wolff for FP1 as Formula E champion Nyck De Vries drove the W13.
“It was kind of crazy because I hadn’t even driven the car from where Nyck was,” Lewis said.
“Nyck did a great job, kept the car in one piece and was great out there. So I’m grateful for the work he did this morning.”
As for teammate Russell, he pinned Mercedes’ underwhelming Friday on their rivals for keeping pace in the development race.
“We think so but everybody keeps on improving the car, keeps on bringing updates and the whole grid just moves forward,” he said on if Mercedes’ new parts had worked.
“So even though we’re finding time, our rivals are also finding time so it’s sometimes not quite as simple to see it on the lap chart.”
On the team’s victory chances, he declared: “Outside shot is probably the way to put it.
“We’re probably a little bit further off the pace today than we would have hoped but work to do tonight and back at the factories but never say never.”
