Lewis Hamilton plays down his chances

Lewis Hamilton has played down expectations with his new team, saying his target is only to score points, adding further that his priority is to finish in the top ten.

Some of his main rivals had earlier commented that Hamilton’s switch to Mercedes would see the them challenging at the front of the grid for podiums and possibly race wins this year. The team, meanwhile, has only won ‘once in three years so far.’ Hamilton was asked during testing at Barcelona if he felt that the team could challenge for race wins this year, he replied that his expectations were much lower.

“I haven’t seen anything just yet,” Hamilton Continued. “We’re not looking at wins at the moment. We’re hoping to get in to the points this year; we’re hoping to get in to the top ten.

“It doesn’t mean it’s impossible but I think people are talking us up at the moment with [Sebastian] Vettel and I think Fernando [Alonso] saying I’m going to be competing for the world championship. Well I really don’t see that happening at the moment. Of course that’s our goal but you’ve got to remember the car was sometimes two seconds off last year and we’ve not caught two seconds up. And the teams will have put on another second this year so we’ve not gained three seconds; that’s just a fact. Hopefully by the end of the year we will have gained three seconds – that’s our goal – but definitely not at the beginning.”

Hamilton reinforced his belief that the car is at its weakest point when it comes to downforce.

“The engine is the strongest point, the downforce is the weakest point. It is as simple as that!”

Despite his low expectations, Hamilton was keen to point out that testing was progressing well and that the car is ‘as competitive as expected.’

“It’s gone pretty well. Today obviously with the rain it’s not been the best in terms of getting some mileage but when we’re in the dry we’ve got through a lot of the programmes that we wanted to get through and have just been focusing on ourselves and I’m quite happy.”