Mercedes is the target
The chase has begun. After the first race held in Australia, it became clear to everyone that there are two top forces in F1 at the moment: Mercedes, dominant both on the single lap and in the race and which, according to many, might have even hidden part of its actual power, and Ferrari, the first – and perhaps currently only – pursuer of the silver arrows, capable in Melbourne of exploiting the advantage at the start to try and complicate life for George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.
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A race for developments
Speaking with journalists present in China, Lewis Hamilton tried to quantify the advantage of his former team compared to the Maranello team, also showing hope regarding the SF-26’s chances of reaching the performance of the W22, currently the absolute benchmark at the start of this new regulatory era. “I think it depends a lot on development – the seven-time world champion stated – The pace of development is quite sustained for everyone at the moment, so people will be curious to see who brings updates in the next races“.
“Mercedes has a big advantage – Ferrari’s #44 acknowledged – I mean, you saw it in qualifying. They had something like 8 tenths or so of an advantage. In the race, I think the gap was between 4 and 5 tenths when they were in clean air, which is a huge gap. So it will be really interesting to see the development. We will try to catch them and I believe we will succeed, but I can’t say it with absolute certainty“.
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“Where are they further ahead? It seems to me that it’s mainly on the straights. When they open up the aerodynamics, that’s when they take a big step forward. So whatever happens in that phase is something we need to understand, and then they seem to have a bit more power”, Hamilton concluded.
