Hamilton: 'Rhythm and performance not in harmony at Mercedes'

Lewis Hamilton admits he's struggling to unlock performance from his Mercedes W09, and fears his championship lead will be difficult to maintain.

After three races, the four-time world champion finally delivered to Mercedes its first win of the season albeit a lucky one following the misfortune which befell team mate Valtteri Bottas in Baku.

Hamilton robbed arch-rival Sebastian Vettel of the lead in the world championship, but expects his four-point advantage to be challenged sooner rather than later given his car's current relative weakness compared to Ferrari's fast and consistent SF71-H.

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"Leading the championship is great, but if we continue as we are, it will take a lot of lucky races to keep me here," the Mercedes driver is quoted by Marca.

"And you can't expect that for the next 17 races."

Hamilton pointed to his W09's difficulty in exploiting its tyres as a cause for concern, but also underlined the need for him to raise his own game.

"The car has the pace but we are not unlocking it. We need performance and I need a rhythm and they're not in perfect harmony," he explained.

"Their [Ferrari] pure pace is much better than ours at the moment. By no means do we have a bad car, but we need to improve it to make it easier to drive.

"I felt really good in Australia but it hasn't worked out since then and I'm not sure why."

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