Reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari’s pace in Bahrain proved that Mercedes wasn’t lying over its position in the pecking order post-testing.
Hamilton suggested during pre-season testing that Mercedes was half a second per lap slower than Ferrari, but the reigning champions went on to dominate the season-opener in Australia while Ferrari struggled.
It prompted the suggestion that Mercedes had been deliberately playing down its pace but Hamilton was again quick to dismiss such a stance.
Ferrari dominated the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend in terms of performance but Hamilton led a Mercedes 1-2 in the wake of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari SF90 losing a cylinder during the closing stages.
“We were outperformed [in Bahrain],” said Hamilton.
“We were surprised in the first race. I hear whispers that people think we were sandbagging or not telling the truth or all those things. We said it how it was.
“When we went to the first race we truly believed… I was presented where everyone’s positions were [after testing] and from our estimates and understanding of potential fuel loads and power modes and all these things we were behind from three to five tenths.
“And we got to the first race and they [Ferrari] didn’t have any pace all of a sudden.
“We came out of the first race incredibly surprised and really, really happy to have had such a great result as it had been a hard winter for the team, as it is everyone, and we came to Bahrain.
“We are happy [with the win], but we are also conscious and aware of how lucky we were to come away with a 1-2.
“We all worked so hard through the weekend, as we do every weekend, but we underperformed.
“Naturally you have lucky weekends. We have to go away and take the points and be grateful for them as you never know when at some stage it’s flipped and we have an unfortunate weekend.
“We can’t be jumping around in excitement because we know, and I know, that Charles did the job and should have won.”
Hamilton again lost ground at the start, slipping to fourth behind Bottas, having relinquished his pole advantage to his team-mate at the previous event in Australia.
“I’m just going to keep working at it,” he said on the start procedure.
“Basically you stumble, fall, get back up. Just keep pushing.
“I go away from the weekend feeling we worked really hard and made some good steps with the set-up through the weekend, moving in the right direction.
“It’s a track that I struggle [with], probably one of the most out of all of them, and so to come out ahead of Valtteri, who’s really quick, always, as was Nico [Rosberg], and then to be in the mix, I was really happy with that.”
Hamilton trails Bottas by a single point in the standings.
