Lewis Hamilton can't benefit as Red Bull open door to catching Max Verstappen

11 August 2023 , 23:00

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Lewis Hamilton can't benefit as Red Bull open door to catching Max Verstappen

Toto Wolff has already explained why Lewis Hamilton won't be able to take advantage of Red Bull ending development on their 2023 car.

The RB19s are by far the quickest on the grid in terms of race pace. The team's 100 per cent winning record after the first 12 races of the season is the key indicator of how one-sided this campaign has been so far.

Hamilton, like everyone else on the grid not named Max Verstappen or Sergio Perez, has not been within a sniff of a win this year. And his personal drought extends right the way back to the penultimate race of the 2021 season which produced that enthralling title race with his Dutch rival.

The seven-time world champion would dearly love to get back onto the top step at the podium at Verstappen's expense. But, unless the Red Bull racer crashes or suffers a mechanical failure in one of the final 10 races of the year, it seems extremely unlikely to happen.

That's despite team principal Christian Horner declaring that there are no more upgrades to come. He said: "I think that's pretty much it. There will be some circuit specific bits and pieces, but we've got six months to come up with another one, and with a lot less wind tunnel time than our opponents. That's where we've got to be really selective in how we use our resources.

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"Of course, trying to balance things between this year's car and next year's car. That's when the team... and all [the] credit to everybody back in Milton Keynes. This result is their result, the way they are applying themselves to the challenge at hand. It's incredible the history we are making."

That may give the chance for other teams who opt to develop their 2023 cars further the chance to close the performance gap to the top team. But Mercedes won't be doing that as Wolff has already confirmed that his team will also be switching focus to what it hopes will be a title-challenging 2024 machine.

" The sails are set for 2024," said the Austrian. "Now with the car development almost stopped for this year. I find that good because there is so much we can optimise on the current car without looking too much onto upgrades. Let's see how we can really get it in to more of a sweet spot, whilst gaining lots of understanding for next year."

Ever the optimist, though, Hamilton has refused to rule out the prospect of winning a race this year. He said: "At the moment, I'm not quite sure we can currently compete with [Red Bull] on race pace. I think there were times in [Hungary] Max was around eight tenths faster than everyone on a single lap. But never say never."

Daniel Moxon