Hamilton: "But then you get in and the car is still the same..."

Like George Russell, Lewis Hamilton has no illusions that Mercedes will suddenly be there this weekend. The gap between the Ferrari's and Red Bulls is too big. Major updates are still to come, the seven-time world champion told a press conference broadcast by Sky Sports.

Once this season Hamilton was on the podium, at the first Grand Prix of the season in Bahrain. That's another thing compared to previous years. Certainly, at the beginning of the season, the Briton was a certainty in the first three, but in 2022 everything is different. Mercedes will have to give chase.

Mercedes faces challenge

The Brackley-based team is working hard on that, but it's not as if all the problems will be solved overnight. "Every time that I arrive I am optimistic hoping that the car is going to be night and day different, but then you get in and the car is still the same." Very few changes from two weeks ago are therefore expected by Hamilton.

At Melbourne Park, the Mercedes stayed pretty close to the RB18s of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, but Toto Wolff and Andrew Shovlin already indicated that that had more to do with a wrong set-up by Red Bull than with the performance of the W13. Hamilton now expects Red Bull to have regained its distance. "We don't have massive steps this weekend or any real fixes," he said.