(Motorsport) Seven time World Champion Lewis Hamilton expects Mercedes to remain winless in the remaining three races of the 2022 season. The 37 year old came agonisingly close to winning the United States Grand Prix, only to finish second after a late Max Verstappen overtake. Mercedes also saw their eight-year streak of constructors' championships end last Sunday after Red Bull secured the honour. With the next race in Mexico and both the titles concluded, the eyes are now on Mercedes and whether they will manage to get a victory this season. However, Lewis Hamilton is not confident about the W13’s prospects.
He said “I think we really need to be realistic. The Red Bull car has been the fastest car by far all year and it is still the fastest car. So [in the USA] we were in the position we were in through reliability. If Charles was there, if Perez was there for example, it would have been a different race because they would have been ahead of us. We would have been on the third row. It was great to start third and be in a position to fight, but at true pace they were ahead of us today and they will be in the next three races.
"Unless something drastic happens to any more of them, it's highly unlikely we'll have the true pace to be able to compete with them. We'll give it everything we've got and we're working on a car to be able to fight with them. He (Verstappen) was behind Charles, that just shows how much pace they had in hand, to get past Charles, catch me, and finish three seconds ahead."
Hamilton has won a race in every single Formula 1 season he has competed in so far and failure to win in Mexico, Brazil or Abu Dhabi will finally break that illustrious record. The British racing driver had a realistic chance of winning in Austin after Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez had grid penalties while Carlos Sainz was forced off at the beginning of the race and Max Verstappen had an 11 second penalty in his second and final pit stop. However, the reigning two time World Champion showed incredible pace to catch up to Hamilton in order to secure his 13th win in 19 races this season.
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