If there is one team that has disappointed above all in these first four seasons of a very long world championship, it is undoubtedly Mercedes. In yesterday's race we witnessed the contradictions of a team that, at least from the outside, seems to be on the high seas on all fronts, both technical and managerial. The one whom Mercedes believes will be the driver of the team's future has shown in this season start what many expected: a real top driver, capable of maximizing the performance of the vehicle at his disposal, probably also thanks to the 'endless purgatory in Williams, in which he spent three years without being able to show his talent as he would have liked; because this is George Russell, a talented driver who, like the well-known rare cases of the circus, has burned the stages to get to the premier class of four wheels. In fact, the Englishman showed consistency, finishing in the top 5 in the first four races of the season (the only driver to do so), and performance, managing to squeeze even more than his teammate from a W13 that seems anything but competitive. And if on the one hand there is the rising champion, on the other there is the star that, until now, has not shone as one would have expected. In the race held yesterday at the Enzo e Dino in Imola, Hamilton got stuck in a little train, which lap after lap it seemed impossible to overtake, like a wall, allowing the Englishman to cross the finish line in an anonymous 13th position, with partner in fourth grade. Perhaps it will have been a rare out of tune in a long championship, but what transpires from Lewis's words is a descending motivation, he himself said: 'we don't see the light at the end of the tunnel'. Strange to believe it given that in past races he had seemed very confident in the team which has always entrusted him with means close to technical perfection, trying everything in order to patch up a dancing car, trying out all types of set-ups improvising himself in roles not typical of a pilot, but of an engineer. George Russell, who among other things has won most of the team's points (49 out of 77), absolutely does not give up on the seven-time world champion, reporting the following words: 'Lewis I am sure he will come back and he is pushing me to always give the best. I don't feel comfortable in this situation because I know what he is capable of.' Well, all we have to do is wait for the next appointments, to see how a team used to always obtaining the best results will evolve, both in terms of the drivers and the car, which increasingly gives the impression of being the result of a wrong project, son of badly interpreted regulations.
SOURCE: Motorsport.com Italy
