Martin Brundle is disbelieving of the reasons Lewis Hamilton has given for his lack of form at Ferrari amid another difficult weekend at Formula 1‘s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The seven-time World Champion again struggled to find a balance with his car in Jeddah, and saw himself comprehensively outperformed by team-mate Charles Leclerc.
In qualifying, Hamilton was over half-a-second adrift of Leclerc in seventh, a position he would hold in the race, half-a-minute behind Leclerc, who wound up in third place.
Hamilton has been publicly frank about the issues he is suffering with the SF-25, and has previously stated he needs to alter his driving style to extract more from the car.
But speaking on Sky Sports after the race, Brundle conveyed his scepticism at Hamilton’s rationale.
“Fred [Vasseur] summed it up, he said it’s been up and down, because there was a time when we talked about in commentary where he was in the mid 1:32s which was bang on the pace,” he said.
“He ended up 31 seconds behind Charles Leclerc, his team-mate.
“Obviously had a little bit more traffic because he was further down the grid so you can take some off for that but it was up and down.
“I struggle to buy into he doesn’t understand the car. It’s a new car [but] here we are knocking on the door of May, and they’ve had all the preseason stuff and all that.
“So I just think Lewis hasn’t gelled with this car and I don’t think he’s going the right way on the setup.
“I know from the things I’ve heard from Mercedes about how Lewis likes the car in a certain way.
“Obviously can’t get the car there, where he needs it, so it’s difficult days. But what’s a bit odd is, all of a sudden, he was right there.”
Bearman and Antonelli have found speed
Brundle cited Oliver Bearman and Kimi Antonelli as references to his incredulity at Hamilton’s reasoning.
The former scored points on his F1 debut – with Ferrari – at the same circuit last year, despite just a day’s notice that he would be racing.
“Bearman, it took him in a day last year here, but then he wasn’t relearning a car. He was just getting in and learning a car,” he said.
“But [Kimi] Antonelli, he’s got used to working with Bono quite quickly in working with that car. He did a lot of testing last year.
“I’m struggling to buy into that, honestly, but we know Lewis is better. Lewis is faster than that. So something’s not working. Something’s not gelling there.”
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