Lewis Hamilton faces his most difficult season in Formula 1 since the hybrid era began because his car, the W13 , is not as competitive as he expected in 2022. The Briton arrived in Melbourne hoping to steer Mercedes towards the winning path, but knowing that you still need to wait to have a winning car.
The seven-time world champion put in a performance that earned him fourth place, however, he fell behind his Brackley team-mate George Russell for the second consecutive date.
Hamilton was affected by the periods of the safety car, and the other Englishman from Mercedes was able to climb to the last position of the podium, snatching the possibility of being in the top three from Stevenage.
Despite not tasting the champagne at Albert Park, the seven-time champion was satisfied with what he had achieved there: “It’s a great result for us as a team, to be honest. We’ve had some tough times with the car this weekend to get fifth and sixth in qualifying, to progress as we have done and have reliability”.
“We didn’t expect to be third and fourth, and George [Russell], he did a great job today,” admitted Lewis Hamilton after getting out of his car in Australia. “I was able to see a bit of the battle with Sergio Pérez, and I would have liked to have been in it, but we are keeping these points, we will continue to push.”
The next test on the 2022 Formula 1 season calendar will come in two weeks, at the legendary Imola track, where the teams are expected to introduce the first package of major improvements to the course.
Mercedes continues to investigate the problems that he has in his car, especially on the high-speed straights, where they feel the effect of porpoising, however, this was not the reason that stopped Hamilton in the fight for the podium.
“I couldn’t fight for third position because the engine was overheating so I had to go back and stay behind,” explained the Englishman. “But like I said, we’ve taken as many points as we can as a team, and that’s great.”
