"We’re just still not as quick as those front guys"- Lewis Hamilton feels Mercedes 'not good' in terms of grip

After his first session at Paul Ricard, Lewis Hamilton reckons Mercedes were not as quick as the cars in front of them.

Mercedes expected a smooth track surface, and the hot temperatures and the fast-speed sections of the track to work in their favour, but that didn't happen. George Russel, the faster of the two Mercedes drivers was around seven tenths of a second behind Carlos Sainz, while Hamilton was further back at nine tenths of a second.

Talking to the media, Hamilton sounded a bit dejected at the situation, conceding that Mercedes were not as quick as the frontrunners.

“Today we’re in fourth and fifth, so that’s kind of the region that we’ll be fighting for. I don’t mean that we can’t be on the podium, I think we can still be up there. We’re just still not as quick as those front guys – we’re a little bit further back than we were in the last race," he said.

When asked where Mercedes was losing out, Hamilton said that the car was losing time everywhere and was lacking downforce compared to Ferrari and Red Bull.

“The car’s not spectacular here; we don’t know why, but hopefully overnight, we can make a bit of a step. It’s just every corner. I’m going to have to dig deep into the data, but it just feels like we’re lacking downforce today. But otherwise it’s okay, I can only have empathy for the guys even further back."

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The new generation of the car not as grippy as the previous generation - Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton touched on another important point when he mentioned that the new generation of cars doesn't have as much grip as the previous generation's. Although the Mercedes driver said that it was primarily because of the first year of new regulations, the cars should only improve.

"I think generally this generation of car is definitely nowhere near as good as it used to be in terms of grip and stuff that we had in the past. But it also is the first year of this generation, so I’m sure it’ll get better over the years. But we have work to do; we’re a little bit further behind than we anticipated this weekend.”

There is a lot of hype around this weekend, as it'll be Lewis Hamilton's 300th F1 race. The long runs for the Mercedes drivers were still quite competitive, and Hamilton battling for at least a podium this weekend.