Hamilton: W09 is harder to drive than the diva

Editor

Although last year’s W08 was labelled a “diva”, Lewis Hamilton says this year’s Mercedes F1 car is even harder to drive.

The British driver raced to his first victory of this season in Baku on Sunday, handed the victory through a late puncture for Valtteri Bottas.

The win put Hamilton at the top of the Drivers’ standings, four points ahead of Sebastian Vettel.

However, the reigning World Champion reckons Ferrari’s SF71H is the car to beat while his own W09 is harder to drive than last year’s “diva.”

“We’ve definitely got a lot of work still to do – we still are behind,” Hamilton told Sky Sports.

“Ferrari’s pure pace is a lot ahead of ours at the moment.

“We definitely are there in the mix and we’ve not got a terrible car at all, by any means.

“We’ve just got to refine it a little bit and make it a little bit easier to drive.

“She definitely isn’t as easy to drive as it was last year.”