It wasn´t an easy day for the Constructors´ Champions in Imola with both drivers qualifying outside the top ten. George Russell outqualified Lewis and finished the Sprint Race in P11.

After the Sprint race he told the media his race was “difficult” and explained “ the pace of the car wasn't bad but we just had no straight speed and when there's only one overtaking opportunity, you need a bit of straight-line speed to be able to make the overtaking opportunities.

"So... made doubly difficult this sprint race. I'm not a major fan of it…it needs to probably be 50% longer or just that little bit longer to sort of see the tyres degrade with drivers may be need to manage the tyres a bit more and then you can see a bit more of a difference between cars, but at the moment everyone is going flat out and there's not enough a big lap time difference to see those overtakes, unless you qualify out of position.”

George remains hopeful that tomorrow´s race will be better for them compared to today 21 lap race: “definitely got more opportunity because today, everybody except two cars or three cars started on the same tyre. So, you'll see some different choices. We will have to probably do something different to our competitors to make the difference because It was clear that it wasn't straight forward to overtake on track. Longer race, pitstop, there are more variables.

"We need to get back up to that P5 or P6 position; I think we've probably overachieved in the first three races with our package. Probably this weekend we are below par; we need to bounce back.”

Although Mercedes’s been struggling with issues since the very beginning of the season, today´s sprint race showed that silver arrows plummeted almost to the end of the midfield compared to the 3 previous race weekends. When he was asked for a reason to explain the concerning performance of today´s event he explained: “I think there's reason behind everything in the sense of our pace. It's been clear all year that we've struggled a bit with warm-up and the nature of these first four races. It's progressively got a little bit cooler, every race and tarmacs a bit different.

And, you know, Bahrain is notoriously a very aggressive circuit. And even there, we struggled to get the tyres working and then we went to tracks where it was a lot smoother or racing in the night. Melbourne was a lot cooler.

And then here, yesterday was thirteen degrees and I think you can see that difference between a car like us, that's really strong in the race compared to a Haas or McLaren who can just get it turned on over one lap but then struggle over the course of 60 laps. So, we need to find a better compromise for sure. It was a frustrating day but that's the way things it pans out sometimes.”

MotorLAT attended an online media session where Lewis Hamilton, p14 talked to the media about the season so far and tomorrow´s expectations. The Seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton didn´t hide his frustration but keeps a fighting spirit “We´re nowhere near where we want to be but we just keep fighting and keep working as hard as we can and hope we´ll eventually see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

The seven-time world champion recognized this is not the first time he´s been in a situation like this one comparing this year to his 2009 McLaren saying: “The 2009 car was very far off, and was the worst car that I've had. This car currently is not far off that experience, but I think it has a lot of potential.”

As it happened in the past, Lewis is hopeful the team will find a solution “we fixed it eventually and got back in the fight, or in the game. And I have the utmost faith that my team can do that here too."

“We are hopeful that we can progress and I do believe we can get into the points. Every point counts.”

He then explained about today: “if we weren´t suck in the train, I believe we have the pace to be in top ten.”