Lewis Hamilton makes his feelings known about the upgraded Mercedes used by him at the F1 Mexican GP

Lewis Hamilton has made his feelings known about the upgraded Mercedes package and feels that the car is slower with the updates. Mercedes introduced an extensive upgrade package for the drivers in Austin. George Russell's crash in qualifying meant that his upgrades were damaged.

In the F1 Mexican GP, the driver is running with the old package that has not been upgraded. Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, has the upgraded package under him. After qualifying, where Lewis Hamilton could only put together a lap that was 6th fastest, the Mercedes driver felt that there was something wrong with the car.

Explaining the complete role reversal in terms of what the car was behaving like in FP3 and then completely losing the feeling in qualifying, Hamilton felt that the car had maybe gotten slower with the addition of the upgrades. He told the media, including Sportskeeda,

"There was not a lot we could do in set-up changes to progress the car forwards. The performance is where it is. Then we got into qualifying and I had no rear. It was like it flipped on its head. It’s a very strange thing with the car. It will be interesting to get a reading because I’m obviously on the upgraded car, which should be quicker. But I don’t think it is.”

He added

"We definitely took a good step in FP3 I thought, at least in balance. But the actual car we were still six-tenths off the cars ahead. We put the bigger wing on to try and get more downforce and just went slower.”

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Lewis Hamilton's teammate George Russell starts the race from P5

Lewis Hamilton's teammate George Russell was more or less content with the result. The driver started the race in P5 and felt that considering he was running an outdated package, this was par for the course. Talking about the qualification, he said:

"We are still running the previous specification package which we’ve had for the last 12 races, so to be less than two tenths off the front-row is a solid effort. My final lap felt good, and I was happy with it as I crossed the line. P5 was likely the most we could have hoped for today given the speed of those in front."

Now it's to be seen how Lewis Hamilton and George Russell fare in the race, especially since the car might not be as good as the top 3 teams. Sergio Perez and Oscar Piastri would be starting the race outside of the top 15, and those are the drivers that the Mercedes duo would be hoping to beat in Mexico. Mercedes is currently placed at P4 in the championship.