Mercedes made wrong assessment: 'Hamilton had to compromise'

Lewis Hamilton was far from satisfied with his team during the Australian Grand Prix. The seven-time world champion, who has mainly had to settle for a place in the subtop this season, argued to the racing team that it was putting him in a difficult position. Motorsport Strategy Director James Vowles explains in the F1 Race Debrief from Mercedes what Hamilton meant by this.

Vowles states that it had everything to do with cooling the engine. The German racing stable made the decision for this on Saturday, but a day later it turned out to be a few degrees warmer than expected. It caused this to have consequences for Hamilton's performance.

"During the course of the race, when you are following a car it meant that Lewis had to compromise what he was doing," Vowles explains. "He had to move out of the dirty air of the car in front of him and make sure he got cool clean air through the radiators to drop the PU temperatures down. But doing that makes racing the car in front incredibly difficult and that's why his message came out."

Hamilton achieved a neat fourth place in Australia behind his teammate George Russell. Nevertheless, he was not satisfied with his performance. He has since told his team that he expects improvements to his car soon, so that it will be easier for him to compete at the front.