Hamilton wants to see gap with Red Bull halved: 'Hopefully Mercedes realises that'

After a competitive Grand Prix weekend in Singapore, where Lewis Hamilton took the podium after a crash by teammate George Russell on the last lap, Mercedes faced another setback in Japan. Hamilton believes the gap to Red Bull Racing is still far too big and insists that the gap must be halved by the 2024 Formula 1 season.

Hamilton wants to see gap between Mercedes and Red Bull halved

During qualifying for the Japanese GP at the Suzuka Circuit, Hamilton had to concede a second to polesitter Max Verstappen. That gap is far too big, judges the Mercedes driver. "I hope the team realise that a second gap is huge and it's real," he is quoted as saying by The Race.

"To be two years in and still be a second down compared to the Red Bulls it’s showing we really need to make sure that we really do the job over the winter to get back at least half that gap for next year," the 38-year-old Briton concluded.

When asked about the reason behind both drivers' varying performances, Hamilton attributes it to the W14's peaky nature. "It's like trying to balance a knife on its tip. It’s never perfectly balanced, it’s one way or the other, you’re either oversteer or massive understeer. You can never get it in the middle. You try and get it as close as you can, but it's very hard to do each weekend," Hamilton said.

Besides falling behind Red Bull, Mercedes was outpaced in Japan by customer team McLaren, which has made clear strides with the latest set of developments for the MCL60. Given the Woking-based team's false start to the 2023 F1 season, McLaren does still lag behind Mercedes in the constructors' standings.