Hamilton sees Mercedes coming up short: 'They are so fast on the straight'

Initially Lewis Hamilton was raving about the updates Mercedes brought to Austin, but after qualifying he sounded less positive. However, the race went better for the team again, which does not make passing judgement any easier for the Brit.

Therefore, after the United States Grand Prix, Hamilton cannot determine whether Mercedes' W13 has improved or not. "Honestly, it's really difficult to say whether or not. I'm sure the team will know whether we've taken a step forward compared to others," he said in the post-race press conference.

According to Hamilton, one race is also not enough to determine the extent to which the updates are working. "It's difficult to say whether it's compared to these guys, but I'm sure it helped." Hamilton had clearly hoped for more with his team's update package but does feel that Mercedes has taken a step in the right direction.

Meanwhile, the 37-year-old Briton still marvels at the pace of the competition. "They've been so fast on the straight, I think, under DRS they're like 35km/h faster than us. If we're behind them, we're like, 22k faster, I think it is, with DRS on the back straight. So he came from a long, long way back." Hamilton said of the pace at which he saw Max Verstappen approach.

"But even without the DRS, I think they're still something like 8k up on us, so we've got a lot of time being lost on the straight, probably four tenths at least a lap. And so we've got some improvements to make for next year's car," the Mercedes driver concluded.