Reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton has quipped that Mercedes can no longer afford to “bluff” in its Formula 1 title battle with rivals Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel.
Hamilton holds a 17-point advantage over Vettel in the standings and was comprehensively beaten to victory at last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.
Hamilton profited from Ferrari mistakes and setbacks in Germany and Hungary to take back-to-back wins in unexpected circumstances, bolstering his chances.
But he has warned that the respective performance of both teams in Belgium means Mercedes cannot be dependent on a repeat of Grands Prix in Germany and Hungary.
“Naturally it is a concern,” Hamilton said of Ferrari’s pace.
“Every time we do this press conference everyone’s like ‘who’ do you think is faster, you or Ferrari’, they’ve had some pace, the upper hand on us for some time, the pendulum has swung a bit.
“Those last two races in particular [Germany and Hungary] we just did a better job with the cards we were dealt with even though they had a better car, pulled a bluff almost, [but there’s] only a certain amount of times you can do that.
“If you’re playing a deck of cards and you’re bluffing there’s only a certain [number of] times before your opponent realises that.
“Moving forward we do have performance coming, I’m sure they have performance coming, so I can’t predict what will happen.”
Hamilton added that his defeat in Belgium was less painful due to his position atop the standings but nonetheless urged Mercedes to bounce back in Italy.
“If we were level or behind in the championship it [losing in Belgium] would be more painful," Hamilton said.
“But definitely we've less few mistakes this year. We need to try and keep that up because that counts for something.
“I lost seven points, I really wanted to come back after the break and not have that gap reduce, now have got to put all our focus into the next race to squeeze out what I can from the car.”
