Ex-F1 team owner Eddie Jordan believes that Lewis Hamilton's struggles in the first two races of the 2024 season have sparked concerns about his motivation.
While both Mercedes cars managed to score points in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Hamilton was outpaced in qualifying and on race day at both venues by his teammate George Russell.
This isn't entirely new territory for the seven-time champion. In 2023, Hamilton started the season slower than Russell. However, he gradually built up his form and was regularly faster than Russell in the back half of the season.
Jordan, speaking on the Formula for Success podcast with co-host David Coulthard, suggests Hamilton might be feeling discouraged this time around.
The former team boss believes that despite the W15 being a better car to drive, it's still not a race winner – similar to the struggles Mercedes faced with the W14 in 2023.
This lack of competitiveness, particularly in his final year with the team, could be impacting Hamilton's morale.
“Lewis, I think, is a bit dejected already with the state of Mercedes,” Jordan said. Mercedes and Toto [Wolff], it’s the same as last year, isn’t it? It’s started poorly.
“It’s very hard to catch up. When you’ve got somebody like Max [Verstappen] who has 51 points on the board, or something like that, already… I mean, it’s just ridiculous. How is Mercedes going to compete?
“The problem for all the other competitors is that other than Ferrari, I cannot see anyone making a serious challenge to this Red Bull team.”
©Mercedes
Jordan suggested that Hamilton desperately needs “a big result” result to avoid the perception that Russell is now the faster driver at Mercedes.
“Lewis… God, he needs a result really badly,” the Irishman said. “The reason why is because George is outshining him, just like what happened this time last year.
“Sure, Lewis got himself together halfway through and then went on to have a very strong second half of the season.
“But the championship is not two halves. It’s a continuous race, there’s 24 races and, in the races, ninth at the weekend. It’s not good enough, he needs a big result. That’s what I think.”
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