Lewis Hamilton giving Mercedes “a hard time” as F1 team slammed over poor form

Lewis Hamilton leaves Mercedes for Ferrari at the end of this F1 season, but the idea of a triumphant exit has already long gone with the Silver Arrows struggling to perform

Mercedes have been slammed for failing Lewis Hamilton in their final season together.

Hamilton leaves for Ferrari at the end of the year and would love to win again before ending his 11-year stint with the Silver Arrows. But that seems unlikely with their latest machine still well off the pace.

The W15 is as temperamental as its predecessors and still not close to the performance of the Red Bull cars. Even worse, Mercedes have slipped even further behind with Ferrari and McLaren now clearly ahead of them.

Given the situation, former Formula 1 executive Mark Gallagher thinks it’s only natural that Hamilton will be frustrated with the team. “Lewis is what he is and that is a highly experienced seven-time champion who exists to win,” he told Mirror Sport, via Betway.

“He doesn’t exist to qualify in the third row or the fourth row and get a podium maybe if things go well. He’s there for winning and he is going to give himself a hard time if things aren’t going well but he will also give the team a hard time. That’s what you expect of the great drivers in a way.”

Hamilton’s best result from the four races held so far was seventh in the Bahrain season-opener. Since then, he has finished ninth twice and failed to finish the Australian Grand Prix thanks to an engine failure.

Gallagher, who served on the board at Jordan Grand Prix and later worked for Jaguar and Red Bull Racing, thinks Hamilton’s own performances have been “a little bit below par”. But he insists it would be unfair to criticise the seven-time F1 champion for that given Mercedes’ failure to provide him with the tools he needs to win.

He added: “[Hamilton] is driving a car that is clearly not giving him the confidence and the speed and the consistency that he wants, and they are not able to give him winning strategies.

“I’ve seen this before with world champions in my career that get to a point that a car underneath them isn’t able to give them the success that they want, and it becomes very difficult for them to almost comprehend where they find themselves. It’s incredibly frustrating when you are used to turning up, qualifying on the front row, winning races and winning champions and then finding yourself sliding back in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

“The team isn’t able to give him the car that he wants so it’s not really Lewis dropping his head or being fairly critical of the team, he just goes to those races without a realistic chance of even getting a podium finishing at the moment and that’s incredibly disheartening. It’s a tough one for him.”