Hamilton suggests Mercedes could suffer in Hungary and Mexico

Lewis Hamilton reckons that Mercedes could be in for more frustrating races this season, specifically in Hungary and Mexico, after the car struggled in the hot conditions at the Austrian Grand Prix at the weekend.

Mercedes won the opening eight races of the campaign through Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, but their performance at the Red Bull Ring was their worst of the campaign as the former finished fifth and the latter in third.

Both cars were negatively affected by the heat on the track, which reached up to 55 degress on the surface, with both engines reportedly overheating at points.

Hamilton believes, unless a solution can be found in time, that Mercedes could suffer further in hot conditions.

“I honestly have no idea,” the Brit initially said when asked if there could be further issues down the line, before mentioning two races in particular which potentially could hurt them.

“I haven’t asked the guys but we haven’t had any problems up until here so I don’t know what hot circuits we have coming up.

“We’ve got Budapest coming up but who knows at other places. I don’t think it will be in a lot of places but I’m sure they’ll be another one like that, like Mexico maybe.”

Even though Mercedes suffered their first major setback of the season, Hamilton disputes the suggestion that they needed the wake-up call.

“I don’t think we needed a weekend like this to remind us,” he said of a championship challenge.

“We’ve not been complacent at any of the races that we’ve had. It doesn’t do anything for us.

“We knew it would be a difficult weekend for us and it was probably more painful than we thought, but we haven’t been complacent at all.

“The guys have worked very hard and it was just one of those days.”

After nine races, Hamilton leads the championship by 31 points, with team-mate Bottas in second.

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