After a prolonged period of off-season silence, 37-year-old Hamilton returned to the F1 grid this season after agonisingly missing out on last year’s title to Max Verstappen. But prospects of revenge are already slipping away this time around, with Verstappen and Charles Leclerc the early front-runners for Red Bull and Ferrari.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff may be feeling the pressure despite the unexpected bonus of Russell’s relative success. Speaking after Sunday’s Grand Prix, he agreed with Bottas on the source of Hamilton’s Imola frustration.
“You see that when there is a DRS train like we had in the Sprint race, none of them could overtake,” claimed the Austrian, “It’s really if you’re being boxed in, in a train of cars, it’s just almost impossible to overtake.