Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton had admitted that he feels grateful for a third-placed finish at 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix, after a difficult opening race weekend for the Silver Arrows.
Having arrived in Bahrain for the second pre-season test as early favourites after topping the first pre-season test in Barcelona, Spain, last month, Mercedes surprisingly struggled for pace throughout the second test which continued into the season-opening round.
Hamilton in particular struggled as he placed ninth at the end of Friday Practice but was able to recover on Saturday to fifth, albeit 0.680 seconds slower than pole-sitter – Charles Leclerc who went on to clinch Ferrari’s first victory since 2019 Singapore Grand Prix.
Acknowledging Ferrari’s improvements with high praise, Hamilton commented: “A big, big congratulations to Ferrari, I’m so happy to see them doing well again, they are such a historic and epic team.”
Hamilton though felt that his own race was “difficult” after an early gamble onto hard tyres failed to pay off as he was forced onto a three-stop strategy with further switches to medium then soft tyres at end of laps 27 and 44 respectively.
Late fuel pump failures for both Red Bull cars of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez however allowed Hamilton to sneak an unexpected third-placed podium finish, which the Brit felt was “really the best result we could have got.
“Of course it was unfortunate for the other two drivers but we did the best we could and we are grateful for these points.”
Mercedes though face an uphill battle to ignite any prospect of challenging for a ninth constructors title in this current 22-race season, with Hamilton feeling that the Silver Arrows just need “to maximise our weekends and at some point, we’ll be back in the fight.”
Mercedes Team Principal, Toto Wolff echoed Hamilton’s thoughts as he added that Mercedes simply “were punching above our weight class,” following retirements for both Red Bull drivers but admitted that third and fourth for Hamilton and George Russell are “fantastic” results.
Russell meanwhile had qualified ninth after an experimental out-lap gamble failed to pay dividends but enjoyed a “positive race,” as he recovered to fourth despite both Mercedes drivers driving their own races unchallenged for much of the race on different strategies.
The 24 year-old Brit also noted that the results were better than expected given Mercedes’ issues as he said: “Considering we’re half a second behind in qualifying and probably the same, if not more, on race pace, it was a good damage limitation weekend.”
Russell though is confident that there is “a lot of potential in the car” to unlock once the data has been dug into in order to understand how exactly to extract extra performance.”
Wolff however suggested that wing and drag issues were to blame for Mercedes’ lacklustre performance as he added: “I think we were over winged today, we had too much drag and that is just because we are lacking parts at the moment but hopefully we can remedy that, and make progress on the top two’s advantage.”
Mercedes powered customer teams also endured difficult races as Aston Martin, Williams and McLaren all failed to score points, with Wolff concluding that the team “really need to leave no stone unturned on the PU side and look for all performance gains” to benefit all Mercedes powered cars.
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