Let's not get carried away, urges Hamilton

22/02/2013

As the Mercedes W04 is continues to impress at Barcelona, Lewis Hamilton has warned fans not to get carried away, insisting that the German team is not in a position to challenge for wins.

"We're not looking at wins at the moment," he told reporters as the teams took their final lunch break of the week at the Spanish track. "We're hoping to get into the points and fight for Top Ten positions.

"It's not fast enough to be quickest over one lap, but it's not slow, that's for sure," he added. "The engine is the strongest point, the downforce is the weakest point. Nice and easy.

"The downforce factor is what everybody's pushing massively hard for," he continued. We also need to improve the reliability in some areas, sensors and that, but otherwise we need as much downforce as we can.

"The team won a race last year so they clearly have not such a bad foundation in terms of the mechanical side of the car. But in terms of downforce, that's where we need to improve."

Looking back on the final days of the Jerez test and this week's performance at Barcelona, he continued: "People are talking us up at the moment, Vettel and Fernando are saying that we're going to compete for the World Championship. I really don't see that happening.

"Of course that's our goal, but you've got to remember the car was over a second, sometimes two seconds, off last year. We haven't caught two seconds up and the other teams would have put another second on this year, so we've not gained three seconds. That's a fact.

"Hopefully by the end of the year, we'll have gained three seconds, that's our goal. But definitely not at the beginning."