Lewis Hamilton, Formula 1 world champion, suspects that the rival team Ferrari had started working earlier on their new car for 2019.
Hamilton was concerned that Mercedes has most probably lost the march to its rival of putting efforts for the newer version of their car.
The British driver, while talking to media, stated that when Mercedes victory for world championship became evident last year, the rival team Ferrari had directed their efforts to season 2019.
“Obviously during the year you have a huge group of people who are working towards winning world championships,” he said. “If you’re not looking like you’re going to win the world championship out of worry you might pull some of the team off earlier.
“So most likely they started developing this car a month at least earlier than us, maybe.”
Hamilton was shaky that the earlier focus on next season by Ferrari might give them an edge this season because the latter had more time to work on new aerodynamic rules.
Hamilton added, “You only have a certain amount of resources you can use, you want to continue to make sure you solidify and win the current championship, or do you want to tail off to make sure that next year’s good? But you don’t know that next year’s going to be good because the rules change. So it’s trying to find a balance.”
He also pointed out the Ferrari advantage of more human resource than Mercedes. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Ferrari had more people,” he said. “In Italy it’s not easy to fire people, that’s what I heard.”
“It’s different when you’re chasing as opposed to defending. Last year they arrived here with a car that was working well but they’ve done even better this year.”
Over his concerns about Mercedes performance, he said that the manufacture would require to make important decisions regarding Ferrari advantageous position before the start of season.
“I’m really, really proud of what my team has done to get us to where we are today. It’s not that I’m worried or anything or disappointed or anything, we’re just incredibly encouraged and infused with the fact that we’re working as hard as we are.
“We’ve got a hill to climb but we know how to do it. It’s just about how we strategize how diligent we are in these next days to analyse what we do, no shortcuts and try to bring more performance.”
