Lewis Hamilton claims he’s ‘not surprised’ by rivals catching up to Max Verstappen and Red Bull in 2024

Lewis Hamilton reckoned that Red Bull's drop in performance this season was not unusual in F1.

Lewis Hamilton claims he’s ‘not surprised’ by rivals catching up to Max Verstappen and Red Bull in 2024

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen (images via IMAGO)

During the recent Spanish GP, Lewis Hamilton had his best finish of the 2024 season so far. The seven-time world champion finished third at the Circuit de Catalunya, with teammate George Russell fourth, to secure his first podium since last October.

Lewis Hamilton said he was not surprised that rivals have caught up Red Bull due to their decline in performance recently. He explained that this was normal part of the sport. Hamilton said , As teams approached the end of this generation of cars, they found it harder to make performance improvements. The Briton pointed out that this is a common trend in Formula 1, where the leading teams eventually face challenges in maintaining their advantage. Recently Max Verstappen had expressed his discontent over Red Bull’s drop in performance.

Am I surprised? I wouldn’t say that I’m surprised. I think it’s just the way the sport goes and I think we are nearing the end of this generation of cars, so often what happens [is that] it tails off in performance, finding gains is harder.
Lewis Hamilton said, as reported by PlanetF1.com
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Hamilton explained, Red Bull has been leading for many years, but now they have less time to develop their car. He reckoned, the longer a team stays in top the harder it get for them to keep improving. Because of this it is natural that other teams are slowly catching them. The Briton highlighted, even though Red Bull is facing those challenges, they are still performing very well and are strong competitors.

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They’ve been leading for all these years and also they have less development time, so it’s only natural that people will eventually slowly catch up, but they’re still doing amazing.
Lewis Hamilton added

Lewis Hamilton claimed ‘time will tell’ if Mercedes upgrades are effective

Lewis Hamilton felt positive about his qualifying performance after making progress at the Spanish GP. The Briton explained, team had been doing a lot of analysis and gathering information to understand how they can improve the areas where they fall short. Hamilton highlighted that they had been working hard to figure out what needs to be done to get better results. He remained hopeful that these efforts will lead to better performance in future races.

There has been a huge amount of analysis, and requests of a lot of information from the team, on how we can improve where we are lacking.
Lewis Hamilton said
Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton (Via: Imago)

Hamilton explained the improvements they’re working on mainly involve tires. The team is focused on refining the process from one session to other. He mentioned things start getting good a bit once they get to qualifying. Hamilton remained optimistic, stating that only time will tell if these changes make a big difference. The team worked hard to make continuous improvements, hoping these efforts would lead to better results in future races. Hamilton was confident, their hard work would pay off and they were on the right track to achieve better performance.

It is simply with tires. Typically, once we get to qualifying, things do change a little bit. The car is obviously lighter, you are in the DRS a lot more. Time will tell. But I think we cracked something.
Lewis Hamilton added

Certainly, Lewis Hamilton explained where the car is lacking the most and team is working hard to improve those issues. Fans would love to see Hamilton score back-to-back podiums and cherish some moments before he leaves for Ferrari.

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