Former world champion Jenson Button says Lewis Hamilton will be able to win again if he has a good enough car.
Mercedes has embarked on a new era of Formula 1 with the hope of continuing its records that they began to achieve with the introduction of the hybrid era in 2014. The Silver Arrows won 15 titles over a period of eight seasons. They won seven titles in the drivers’ championship, while they achieved a record in the construction championship because they took 8 titles in a row and thus set a new record.
With the arrival of new rules in the premier class of motorsport, the German team fell to third place. The car with which they entered the current season, is not the one with which they thought they would be able to fight with victory and titles.
At the first pre-season tests in Barcelona, it was not so clear that even then they were quite behind Ferrari and Red Bull, who made it known from the start this year that they will fight for the top podium.
Mercedes surprised the motorsport world with another version of its hope, which has virtually no sides, something that their rivals have begun to fear will not threaten them with such a version.
However, the B version of the W13 Silver Arrows car did not yield promising results. There was torture with the famous jumping, which turned out to be not so easy to solve.
At the Spanish GP, Mercedes brought major upgrades which they were quite happy with because they thought the problem was almost gone. However, Monaco showed again that they were wrong.
All this has led to the seven-time world champion being far from winning, something the Briton has not been accustomed to since 2014.
Jenson Button, who was a teammate of Lewis Hamilton at McLaren from 2010 to 2012, believes the Mercedes driver will be able to win, but he needs a good car for that, which he doesn’t have now.
“I think it’s a big step forward for Lewis to (now) drive a car that’s not competitive in his world,” Button said.
“Lewis is, as we all know, one of the best in the world, if not the best in the world in Formula One cars,” he continued. “It will be competitive again – if it wants to be.”
“It simply came to our notice then. Maybe he thinks his career is over and wants to go and do something else. Who knows? But Lewis, if he has a car that is good enough to win, will win the races, ” concluded Jenson Button.
