'Mercedes staff shedding their blood, sweat, and tears to win'

Lewis Hamilton has provided an insight into the happenings behind the scenes at Mercedes at the moment and revealed that some meetings can see colleagues being "very, very critical" to each other, but that everyone is "shedding their blood, sweat, and tears" to win the championship.

Following a disappointing Canadian Grand Prix in which he finished fifth, Hamilton is now one point behind Sebastian Vettel in the driver's championship.

However, following a meeting to clear the air, Hamilton said Mercedes are raring to go again.

"We as a team have all sat down and each and every person have been critical of themselves, including me," the reigning champion said.

"We come here determined, each and every single one of us, to do a better job. Including me. We all can do better, we can all squeeze more juice out of ourselves, and out of the car.

"Particularly Montreal was a very, very average weekend performance-wise. We've got to make sure we are in tip-top shape moving forward.

"We had really good meetings afterwards. There were great discussions where the team was able to be open with each other, and say honestly, 'This could be better.'

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"About each other as well, and things that I know I can do better, which I'm planning to do."

Hamilton, whilst previewing the French GP this weekend, said that nothing going unsaid in the Mercedes meeting, and although they can get heated, the staff are giving everything to win.

"That is something Toto installed in the team ages ago, and that is something the guys all do, so when they have their big meetings back at the factory they are very, very openly critical," he explained.

"The engineers can sometimes get sensitive. They are like, 'Oh, you can't say that.' But [it's a case of] 'No, I thought we said we're in that comfort zone, you can say what you want.'

"Naturally, everyone is shedding their blood, sweat and tears to make sure we win this season.

"Everyone feels the pain and ups and downs, but the cool thing is when you come out of those meetings everyone acknowledges, 'You know what, there are things I can do better, now I will do better rather than making excuses.'"