Max Verstappen rejects Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes call after F1 testing in Bahrain | McLaren results, Daniel Ricciardo
5 min readLewis Hamilton has returned to the old playbook ahead of the new F1 season but the rest of the grid isn’t buying what he’s selling.
Reigning F1 champion Max Verstappen has cast doubt over Mercedes’ poor showing at testing in Bahrain over the weekend.
Mercedes has won the past eight constructors’ championships but the first look at its 2022 car under new technical regulations appeared to show the Silver Arrows would struggle.
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The team caused a stir when it showed off its radical “no sidepods” design at the final pre-season test before next weekend’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, prompting F1 sporting director Ross Brawn to call it an “extreme interpretation” of new regulations.
But after a weekend which appeared to show Mercedes struggling, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton believes his team will be up against it.
Red Bull’s Verstappen delivered the fastest lap of testing with a 1:31.720 ahead of Haas’ Mick Schumacher, who was a shock second with 1:32.241. Hamilton was nearly 4.5 seconds back in 17th on day three.
“I am sure everyone can figure that out, we are not the quickest at the moment,” Hamilton said. “I think Ferrari look to be the quickest and perhaps Red Bull and then maybe us or McLaren.
“Obviously it’s a little bit too early to have that kind of thoughts but at the moment I don’t think we’ll be competing for wins.”
However, Hamilton is not averse to playing up the negatives if his history or radio messages are anything to go by.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz has already labelled Hamilton’s words as “typical” behaviour out of the Mercedes garage, while Verstappen also doesn’t buy the woe from the perennial frontrunner.
“If someone is doing well or a team that everyone expects to do well, then it’s, ‘Oh no, we’re definitely not the favourite’,” Verstappen said, as quoted by Autosport.
“And then a week later, when things do go well, all of a sudden it’s, ‘Oh no, but we turned it around completely within a week. Not normal, unbelievable work. Thanks to all people in the factory’.
“And they were still very strong during the first race weekend (of 2021) after a similarly low-key testing performance.”
Regardless if the testing woes translate into a difficult season, Mercedes and Red Bull will likely be at each other’s throats all year after the controversial end to 2021.
However, Sky Sports pundit Martin Brundle believes Mercedes has slipped in F1’s pecking order.
“Red Bull have got a race on their hands with Ferrari,” Brundle said. “That’s a frontrunner, that’s a contender, no doubt about it.
“The (Mercedes) car looks a handful but who would you put in front of them? I’d go Mercedes (in third).
“Don’t write them off, Mercedes. I’m sure when they turn up – even in Race One – they’ll be quite a bit faster.”
But in Hamilton’s corner is Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly, who backed up the British champion’s statements.
“I could see Lewis was struggling as well and I think they do have some work to be fighting right at the top,” he said.
Hamilton’s new teammate George Russell was singing from the same hymn sheet.
“At the moment, we seem a step behind our rivals and we have a lot of work to do between now and next week to better understand the car,” he said via the Mercedes website. “There’s a lot of potential in the W13 and I believe our guys are going to get to the bottom of it, we just need to find a way to unlock our performance.”
McLaren’s weekend ‘didn’t go to plan’
After getting frustrated at McLaren’s success in Barcelona because it raised expectations, Lando Norris copped a reality check after a brutal test in Bahrain.
The weekend started with Daniel Ricciardo isolating after contracting Covid, and things just got worse from there for the crew in papaya.
Norris was frustrated on Thursday after a braking issue saw him put in 50 laps, around half as many as Ferrari.
“I think we just had problems with the brakes today. Simple as that,” Norris said. “The exact problem, I’m not too sure, but yes, with these temperatures, (they) didn’t allow us to do long runs, at least.
“Things we’re trying to fix for the next few days. It’s not going to be an easy fix, so we’ll see what we can do, but everyone’s working hard to come up with something.”
It didn’t get much better as the brakes continued to overheat and the team had to go with shorter runs across the weekend.
Mercedes team boss Andreas Seidl was downcast after testing ended.
“The test definitely didn’t go to plan,” Seidl said to Sky Sports. “We had an unexpected problem on the front axle with the brakes which limited our running quite a bit, especially when it came to long runs. It definitely put us back foot.
“Still, I think there were a lot of positives. We could still work on the car to extract performance from it. We could still bring further upgrades to the car as well.
“So there were positives. But unfortunately we have this issue and we were simply up against time in order to bring upgrades to solve the issue.
“You can do it to a certain degree but not to the full extent. Now we simply hope the upgrades we get done for next week solve the problem and we can try to come back.”
But Brundle still believes McLaren are likely the best of the rest behind the big three of Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes.
“I think judging by previous tests I think you’d have to put McLaren in there for fourth, but it’s quite close behind them,” he said.
“I’m thinking Alpine, Aston Martin and AlphaTauri all about the same to be honest – sort of fifth equal.”
With AFP