Mercedes has had "wings clipped" - Lewis Hamilton

São Paulo Grand Prix

Mercedes has had "wings clipped" - Hamilton

Hamilton thinks the changes have made the car more difficult to set up

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Thursday 11 November 2021 17:45

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Lewis Hamilton believes Mercedes has had its "wings clipped" this year as Red Bull has joined the fight for both F1 titles.

Max Verstappen leads by 19 points heading into the final four races, with Mercedes holding a one-point advantage over its rival going into this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix.

This is despite cars being largely rolled over from last season's championship where Mercedes cantered to a double world championship with one of the most dominant F1 cars in history.

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Directives were introduced to change the aerodynamic configurations in order to lessen the load on Pirelli's tyres this season given the development work being put in by each team, acknowledging that the new-for-2022 rules should have been implemented this season before being delayed by Covid.

With Red Bull looking strong throughout winter testing, it was suggested Mercedes had been compromised much more heavily by the changes because of its low-rake aerodynamic philosophy.

Sat alongside former McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso, both of whom lost out on the 2007 world title to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen by a point, comparing past seasons, Hamilton said: "It is just another year. They are all always tough in lots of different ways.

"This year, obviously, we have had our wings clipped so it has definitely been harder from an operational standpoint to maximise the car.

"The battle we had when we were younger was tough against the Ferraris who were very strong back then, so it is all similar.

"I don't rate one any harder than the other. They have all been hard in their own way."

Mercedes struggling to "land on ground" at grands prix - Hamilton

Much of the early season issues for Mercedes seemed to come with a difficulty finding a set-up balance, with the team scoring just seven points across two races, in particular, in Monaco and Azerbaijan.

Hamilton added: "It is just a bit harder to set up this year.

"It is really difficult to explain, there are too many elements to go into detail but it is just a harder car to optimise.

"Some weekends it works and some weekends it doesn't. To land on the ground with simulations in the right place is a little bit harder this year.

"It is similar for others, you saw in Austin, for example, the Red Bulls were quite far off and then on Sunday they switched it around.

"Getting the maximum potential out of the car has been hard this year."