Ted Kravitz does not believe Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff are on the same page when it comes to the W15 with the seven-time World Champion thinking the car is “cursed”.
Hamilton, a two-time Australian Grand Prix winner, failed to reach the chequered flag at the Australian Grand Prix when his W15 suffered an engine failure on lap 17 as the Briton battled for the minor points.
Ted Kravitz: ‘I think Lewis Hamilton thinks it’s cursed’
It capped an inconsistent weekend for the seven-time World Champion who wasn’t happy with the car after Friday’s practice, which he finished down in 18th place.
Hamilton called it “one of the worst sessions” he’d suffered in a long time, adding: “I feel the least confident I’ve ever felt with this car.”
But with Mercedes making major set-up changes, he felt in FP3 that the car was “great” only to be knocked out of qualifying in Q2 when he was 11th on the timesheet.
“Just another inconsistency within the car, it really messes with the mind,” he told Sky F1, adding that his W15 was “on a bit of a knife edge” and that he had a “long list” of fixes that needed to be made.
His comments, though, were in contrast to his team-mate George Russell’s with the Briton seventh fastest as he revealed he is not experiencing the same fluctuations in confidence or performance as Hamilton.
But while their team boss Toto Wolff believes Mercedes will get there, saying he still “believes that there is more in this car” and that it is “not a bad car”, Sky Sports pit lane reporter Kravitz doesn’t believe Hamilton is on the same page as his team boss.
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“I thought it was optimistic that Toto Wolff still believes that this car is somehow going to get there, because clearly, I don’t think Lewis Hamilton believes it,” Kravitz said in his Notebook in Melbourne.
“I think Lewis Hamilton thinks it’s cursed with the same bad handling characteristics, especially in the rear of the car that last year’s car, and the car the year before it, had as well.
“Clearly this car is still not right.
“Toto when I spoke to him said, ‘I still think we can make it right’.
“But Lewis pretty much wrote off this year’s World Championship. I know you’re going to say to me, ‘Yeah, anyone not in a Red Bull is not going to win this year’s World Championship’. But there are 21 races still to go.
“Okay it is obvious Lewis is not going to win the championship and it might not be the golden goodbye to Mercedes before he goes to Ferrari but he can still score podiums and win races.”
After three races, Hamilton sits 43 points behind Max Verstappen after the Dutchman also recorded a DNF in Melbourne.
