Hamilton critical: "Fundamental things about W10 not yet perfect"

As the building process on the new cars reach the final stages, Lewis Hamilton has identified an area in which he believes Mercedes need to improve. While their car was superior, particularly in the corners, Hamilton insists there are key areas where his team of engineers can find gains in preparation for a Ferrari and Aston Martin Red Bull Racing comeback. 

Despite winning his third consecutive F1 world championship, Hamilton founds some reasons to be critical about the W10. 

"The car was better than last season and many of the things that I asked for during the briefings with the engineers were put on the 2019 car. But there are still fundamental things about the car that are not yet perfect," Hamilton explained to Auto Motor und Sport. 

“Take driving over bumps as an example. If I look at a Vettel onboard that is riding over a bump in its Ferrari, then that goes much smoother. The car moves so much with me that I hardly see the turn."

Looking ahead to a 7th title

Hamilton will be pushing to break a number of Michael Schumacher records next season. The British driver is just eight wins away from topping the seven-time world champions all-time Grands Prix win tally. Hamilton will match Schumacher's elusive title record if he wins the championship again. In preparation for the upcoming season, Hamilton explains some of the bigger challenges coming their way ahead of the season start in Australia.

“We are stronger when you look at other aspects. It becomes more difficult to understand the tyres since there is so much involved. Fascinating when you look at it. The temperature of the brakes, of the tyre itself, the pressure of the air in the tire: the engineers are miles ahead of me in that regard. Yet they cannot calculate what I do in the car. We may communicate with each other on a different frequency, but we still know where to find each other. The most important thing is to be clear about what they can take from my impression," Hamilton adds.