Mercedes: Hamilton Admits Vettel and Ferrari’s Superiority

The reigning world champion, Lewis Hamilton, never found the right balance in his Mercedes and suffered from increased tire degradation: « First of all, congratulations to Seb and Ferrari. For us, it was a difficult race. I struggled with the balance of my car today and never felt comfortable in the single-seater. There was so much understeer that managing the tires became really difficult. When I switched to option tires, it was much better, so I was surprised to see that we switched to hards for the last stint. »

The English driver acknowledges the superiority of the Scuderia this weekend: “They were as fast as us, if not faster, and once I had to close that gap, it was just a little too late. (…) I didn’t expect them to be so fast today, but they had a solid pace and deserved this victory. It was great for the fans to see them up on top.”

Nico Rosberg finishes on the third step of the podium, once again beaten by his teammate. After the race, he complained about not receiving enough information from his pit wall: « Engineers aren’t driving, with all their computers and data… On my side, I have nothing, so it’s a battle to see what’s happening. Even for motivation, it’s crucial to have details about what’s going on, and I missed that a bit today. (…) For example, I didn’t understand the strategy at the first pit stop: I was close to Lewis at one point, then I stopped and never saw him again… »

Paddy Lowe, the technical director of Mercedes, was outperformed by his Ferrari counterparts regarding race strategy: « In hindsight, Ferrari had the advantage with their two-stop strategy, and the time lost in traffic in the early laps after the Safety Car left us with a gap to Sebastian that proved too significant to close – particularly considering we didn’t have an underlying advantage over the Ferraris, which were very competitive this weekend. »

The tone is no different on the side of Toto Wolff, the team principal, who acknowledges that they were outright beaten by Ferrari. The intense heat in Sepang certainly favored the Reds according to him: “I am not sure we could have ever caught up with them on the long runs. They achieved a well-deserved victory. We saw on Friday that Kimi Räikkönen was very fast on the long runs, in the intense heat of sixty degrees, and this was confirmed in the race.”

In China, tire wear should be less problematic for Mercedes. However, the pace shown by Ferrari during races could make the season less smooth than expected for Brackley…