Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton exits his car at his garage at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir as he warns the Red Army of too much expectation. | AFP
Image: AFP
Ferrari’s new signing Lewis Hamilton says fans should not expect anything magical from the Prancing Horse this season.
This, despite Ferrari taking delivery of some new parts for the SF-25 recently.
His teammate, Charles Leclerc is a bit more hopeful about the new parts ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend.
Why wouldn’t he though? Hamilton has been around the block and knows it takes much more than parts to build a fast car.
Ferrari have struggled to match the pace of their counterparts, namely McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull, putting them in fourth on Constructor standings after three races.
Their only whiff of victory this season was the Sprint Hamilton won in China, other than that, it's been a bit of a disappointing run for Fred Vassuer and his red army. China ended in disaster, however, with both Hamilton and Leclerc getting disqualified.
Hamilton told the media during Thursday’s press conference that fans shouldn’t wait for anything special.
“Don’t wait for anything [special]. Don’t wait for anything. Just watch and enjoy we’re working as hard as we can so that’s all I can say,” Hamilton said.
“I’m not really feeling a huge amount of issues. We lack overall performance at the moment pace-wise, which we’ll hopefully take a step [with] this weekend.”
Leclerc’s optimism was a bit more evident than his teammate’s.
“I hope it will help us to be closer but it’s still quite a significant step. In Suzuka I think that this was the gap that there is between McLaren and ourselves which is three-tenths, and we need to work very hard in order to catch that," Leclerc said.
“I’m confident that we can close that gap, whether again what we are bringing here I don’t think will be enough but hopefully in the short-term we will have other things which will help us to be closer."
