Hamilton enjoyed the race, but Mercedes has declined in the hierarchy

The boss of the Silver Arrows F1 team, Toto Wolff, stated that, after disappointing qualifications, Mercedes would completely review the design of the W14.

A half-second delay on Saturday’s pole position and on Sunday, the driver of car number 44, Lewis Hamilton, finished in fifth place over 50 seconds behind Max Verstappen.

The British didn’t fail to point out that the Mercedes simply wasn’t fast enough to compete with the best during this first race.

« I sincerely enjoyed the race. I had a good start, I had Fernando in turn 4 and I thought to myself ‘Oh wow, this is a great start to the race.’ It was one of the best starts I’ve ever had », comments Hamilton.

Then, I just kept sliding. I had so many understeers at the beginning, I thought I had lost my front wing, I couldn’t take certain turns, and I couldn’t keep up with the guys in front.

« My middle stint was good and in the end, I was so close to catching up to Carlos [Sainz for fourth position], but [it was] not good enough. »

Lewis Hamilton was nevertheless able to close the gap on Carlos Sainz towards the end of the race. However, this scenario does not reassure him about Mercedes’ chances of performing well this season.

We definitely can’t compete with them at the moment – they were much faster than us, just like the Astons.

« We are now the fourth fastest team, whereas we were third last year. We are falling back, [so] we really have a lot of work to do to close this gap. »