Lewis Hamilton questions Red Bull's frequency of new parts for RB19: "They seem to be bringing continuously upgrades to the car"

Lewis Hamilton is intrigued with Red Bull’s new upgrade on the RB19 at the Hungarian GP weekend. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda, the Mercedes champion questioned the continuous upgrades on the Red Bull.

Asked by Sportskeeda how much his driving style suiting the circuit gave him confidence and could make up for the performance deficit, Lewis Hamilton said:

“I mean I’m always trying to allow my driving ability to makeup for the deficit. But its not been ultimately enough in a lot of places. This has been a strong circuit for me and last year it was a strong circuit for us."

"If you look at the last race (2022), we for some reason we seemed to be very, we’ve all seen it, we were equal in time from turn 13 to Max on a qualifying lap where George was for example. And with him we were just losing performance on the high speed (corners) after that."

Hamilton is hopeful of being closer to Verstappen and others due to the lesser speed of the circuit. He also spoke about Red Bull's potential upgrades, saying:

"Given that this is more medium and low speed. I’m hoping that we will be closer."

"I heard that Red Bull might have an upgrade this weekend again. So we have to see how that affects them. They seem to be continuously bringing upgrades on their car.”

Answering Sportskeeda’s question, Lewis Hamilton assured he always tries his best to make up the performance deficit with his driving. However, just his driving style suiting the circuit is enough.

With eight victories at the circuit, the Briton feels the Hungaroring circuit has been strong for him and Mercedes. He claimed George Russell almost matched Max Verstappen in certain sectors of the track in qualifying pace.

Expecting to Mercedes to be more competitive this weekend, the Briton feels Red Bull bringing another upgrade to their car doesn’t help that confidence. Intrigued to see how the Milton Keynes squad’s upgrades work, the British champion is baffled by their ability to continuously upgrade their car.

---

Lewis Hamilton unsurprised that there are reports of more teams breaching the budget cap in 2023

Lewis Hamilton has been vocal on the subject of cost cap breach penalties in 2022. He had felt that Red Bull were not given a severe penalty for their cost cap breach in the 2021 season. The Briton felt it was not his job to decide the punishments but he wasn’t surprised that there were more breaches this year.

According to reports, there could potentially be four teams that could have reached the budget cap in 2022.

Asked what the penalty should be for such teams, Lewis Hamilton replied:

“I’m not going to say what it needs to be. It’s not my job to do that. We have got people in place that are suppose to police that. But it doesn’t surprise me, there was not a big penalty before. So yeah.”

In 2022, Aston Martin and Red Bull were penalized with a financial penalty for incorrect and late submission of their cost cap details for the 2021 season. For breaching the budget cap by 1.8 million pounds, Red Bull were further penalized with a minor sporting penalty and a wind tunnel time reduction.

While most rivals including Mercedes lobbied for a harsher penalty, Lewis Hamilton was vocal about the minor impact of the budget cap punishment on Red Bull.

In the run-up to the Hungarian GP, Stefano Domenicali mentioned that F1 is considering harsher penalties or a potential sporting penalty for such teams.