Lewis Hamilton has rued a “weekend to forget” at 2022 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix as he finished in a lowly 14th position.
Hamilton endured a difficult Friday as he struggled to get tyre temperature in wet conditions as he described every race weekend so far this season as a “rescue” attempt after he qualified 13th for the Sprint, yet could only finish 14th on the road in the 21 lap Sprint.
Further struggles followed in the main race after a steady start to improve as high as 11th but a pit-lane incident with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon during their pit-stops ultimately cost Hamilton positions as he found himself stuck in 14th position behind AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly to the checkered flag.
Reflecting post-race on the weekend as a whole, Hamilton said: “This was a weekend to forget, that’s for sure. Behind Gasly, we both had DRS so it was impossible to overtake, and I lost a few places in the pit stop.
“This weekend, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We live and we learn, and there’s not much else to say. I’ll keep working as hard as I can to try and pull it back together, somehow.”
Mercedes Team Principal, Toto Wolff added that Hamilton’s woes were simply down to Mercedes not giving the seven-time champion necessary “tools” he needed to fight those ahead of him “… in a DRS train where it was impossible to overtake with our car. ”
George Russell meanwhile drove a strong race from 11th to fourth which he was “relatively pleased” with as he put his overall performances in the four opening rounds due to luck, with the Brit now sat fourth in the driver championship with a 37-point deficit to leader, Charles Leclerc.
Russell though is eager to discover extra speed but believes that tyre warm-up temperatures are Mercedes’ biggest issue as he pointed to a trend in increased cooler temperatures across each of the opening four rounds which have slowly suited midfield teams more.
Explaining what needs to happen for Mercedes to turn their form around, Russell said: “We need to find a better compromise because we were fortunate today, we had a decent result, but ultimately, we were starting far too low on the grid.”
Wolff echoed Russell’s thoughts in that there is “work to do to deliver our drivers a quick enough car”, given that the W13 is currently not “good enough or worthy of a World Champion” in Hamilton or a young talent like Russell.
Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director, Andrew Shovlin meanwhile added that the team are aware of where their performance is at and the direction needed to get their season back on track.
Shovlin also revealed that “there are a couple of major issues with the car” which need fixing in order to quickly recover their deficit to the frontrunners, although he iterated that time is “critical now and we need to move forward in the next two races if we are to keep the leaders within any kind of reach this year.”
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