F1 news LIVE: Red Bull ‘facing difficult times’ as Lewis Hamilton questions Mercedes’ hunger

Lewis Hamilton has praised the performance of Mercedes teammate George Russell and clarified an apparent complaint about team strategy made during the Australian Grand Prix.

Hamilton finished fourth in Melbourne, one place behind Russell, as Mercedes produced a solid showing despite continued performance issues with their car.

It leaves the German team second in the Constructors’ Championship standings, ahead of Red Bull, with defending champion Max Verstappen forced to retire for a second time in the opening three races of the season.

That allowed Hamilton and, particularly, Russell to take advantage, with the 24-year-old recording his first podium at Mercedes to climb to second in the Drivers’ Championship.

Hamilton had appeared angry at his team’s strategy during the race, claiming they had put him in a “difficult position” after Russell moved ahead of him after pitting during a safety car period, but the seven-time world champion explained afterwards that he was instead frustrated at an engine issue that prevented him challenging his colleague.

Alex Albon has revealed the tactics which led to a surprise 10th place finish at the Australian Grand Prix, as he won Williams their first points of the season after starting at the back of the grid.

The former Red Bull driver managed to rise 10 places to give his team a point, moving them off the bottom of the constructors table. Albon himself said he was surprised by the outcome and the team weren’t in the best place ahead of the race.

“We looked at out race predictions and we looked a bit sad,” Albon said per motorsport.com. “It was a race where we took risks, because we felt like no matter what we did we were going to finish 19th or 20th.

“We went into the race starting our race, taking a bit of time to build the tyres up into a nice window, and when you start last you can afford to do that.”

Lewis Hamilton has told F1’s rulers that he would have to chop off his ear to meet their jewellery demands.

While the prohibition of body piercings has been in place since 2004, F1’s new race director Niels Wittich brought the rule to the fore in his pre-race notes in Melbourne before addressing the subject directly with Hamilton and his peers in a two-hour drivers’ briefing.

Wittich says the law is there to protect the driver by not hindering a speedy escape from their car.

But in a show of defiance, Hamilton competed at Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix with piercings in both ears and a nose stud.

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko believes Max Verstappen’s tendency to go “over the limit” is why he hasn’t qualified in pole position this season.

Charles Leclerc has been at the front of the grid twice, in Bahrain and Australia, with Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez achieving pole for the first time in his career in Saudi Arabia. Marko seems frustrated with the Dutchman, admitting he believed his first Formula 1 title would calm the driver’s nerves.

“He goes over the limit, he wants too much,” he told formula1news.co.uk. “That didn’t work out here [in Melbourne] in the last sector.

“We thought that with the World Championship title there would be some calmness from him, but he probably needs another title so that he doesn’t go into qualifying with so much pressure.”

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has admitted Red Bull have “two or three” problems to solve before F1 heads to Imola for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen was forced to retire for the second time in three races after a suspected problem with his fueling system in Melbourne, already leaving the world champion a huge 46 points behind leader Charles Leclerc.

“There are two or maybe three different things at play,” Marko told Servus TV. “Firstly, the reliability problems, which we hardly had last year, but the lag behind Ferrari was also alarming.

“We were negatively surprised by the speed of Ferrari. They had almost no graining and we already had after a few laps. Ferrari can find a good balance with the car more easily.”

“We are clearly heavier than the Ferrari. I think we have a weight handicap of about 10 kilograms. Converted to lap time, that equates to about three tenths per lap. But lowering the weight is expensive. It’s, to start with, a financial issue and secondly it is also related to reliability, so it is a difficult split due to the budget ceiling. We are facing difficult times.”

Italy has seized €105million (£88m) worth of property owned by Russian former Formula One driver Nikita Mazepin and his oligarch father.

The operation targeted a villa - known as Rocky Ram - located in the north of the island of Sardinia.

It is part of broader efforts aimed at penalising wealthy Russians linked to president Vladimir Putin after the invasion of Ukraine.

Mazepin - who was fired by Haas in March - has been included in an EU sanctions list along with his father, Dmitry, who the European Union’s official journal described as a member of Putin’s closest circle.

Mercedes driver George Russell says he isn’t expecting “substantial” improvements to be made on the team’s car “anytime soon”.

Toto Wolff’s team have been behind the pace all season and haven’t won a race yet. Lewis Hamilton managed a podium in Bahrain and Russell bagged his first top-three finish in a Mercedes at the Australian Grand Prix over the weekend but a drivers or constructors title may be out of reach this campaign.

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing substantial in the pipeline anytime soon,” Russell said. “It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s going to take a number of races.”

Lando Norris says McLaren’s finish at the Australian Grand Prix could be as “good as it gets” for the Formula 1 team for a while.

Norris and teammate Daniel Ricciardo bagged points in Melbourne last Sunday, finishing fifth and sixth respectively. It was the best weekend McLaren have had so far this season with Ricciardo picking up his first points of the campaign and Norris grabbing his highest finish. The British driver ended in seventh in Saudi Arabia and 15th in Bahrain.

But Norris has curtailed McLaren fan hopes of the Australian race being a springboard and says the reality is the team won’t achieve much more in the near future.

Ferrari are not looking to make any upgrades on their car ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix next weekend, according to team principal Mattia Binotto.

The Scuderia have set the benchmark for the opening three races of the season, winning in Bahrain and Australia and leading both the drivers’ and constructors championships.

And they do not appear to be in a hurry to improve upon their high-performing car ahead of the trip to Italy at the end of the month.

The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix marks the return of the sprint race. This means there will only be one hour of practice on the Friday followed by qualifying.

Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen admits he has ‘no reason to believe’ he can defend his title in 2022.

The Dutchman, who dramatically pipped Lewis Hamilton to the 2021 championship in Abu Dhabi last year, has suffered reliability problems in both Bahrain and Melbourne which have seen him fail to finish.

He did clinch victory at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix but two DNFs have left him sixth in the drivers’ championship, a huge 46 points off runaway leader Charles Leclerc just three races into the season.

And Verstappen, who has been left extremely frustrated by his team’s inability to provide him with a car which can make it to the finish, insists the championship is not even on his mind at this moment in time.