Hamilton: Ferrari and Mercedes must do better

Lewis Hamilton expected a better result starting from the front row on the grid for the Korean Grand Prix. Overtaken by Romain Grosjean at the start of the race, the 2008 world champion was then caught by Kimi Räikkönen and Nico Hulkenberg and had to fight against Fernando Alonso to save a fifth place at the finish. The pilot Mercedes explained this poor performance in part by a significant problem of degradation. “The car was competitive, but the right front tire was destroyed suddenly. They (my team) told me that I had to go through the graining phase, but there was no graining. The tire was simply dead. It was losing temperature, it was locking up and I couldn't turn the corner. So I had ten or 15 really difficult laps and that’s what cost me so much time. I then found myself stuck behind the Sauber as the traction had become terrible. »

Beaten by Nico Hülkenberg's Sauber, Lewis Hamilton questions the lack of performance of Ferrari and Mercedes who were unable to fight for a podium last weekend. " It's strange. Myself and Fernando are fifth and sixth after doing our own race, but we are of a better caliber than that. We should have fought more at the front with the world champions and with Sebastian (Hag). It was a good fight with Fernando but a disappointing race for us. We definitely would have liked to do better, I think we deserve more as a team, but things didn't go in the best way for us. »

Click on this link to see photos from the South Korean Grand Prix.

Discover the analysis of the South Korean Grand Prix carried out by our special correspondents in issue 1930 of AUTOhebdo, available from tomorrow in digital version on all platforms, and from Wednesday on newsstands.