Lewis Hamilton raises suspicion over Mercedes 'extra power'

Lewis Hamilton has voiced shock over Mercedes' strong advantage over the rest of the field following qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.

Mercedes locked out the front row with George Russell leading Kimi Antonelli, while Red Bull's Isack Hadjar was third - almost eight-tenths down on Russell's time.

Hamilton was forced to settle for seventh place in a disappointing session for Ferrari.

Throughout the pre-season period, the potential of Mercedes' power unit was noted by rivals, particularly due to its reported compression ratio advantage.

Although the FIA is implementing measures from Monaco onward, Hamilton hopes the pace gap is not down to the controversial topic.

“I don't understand it exactly,” Hamilton told media including RacingNews365.

“They didn't show that they could turn it up in testing and now they've got this extra power from somewhere. 

“We need to understand what that is. I hope it's not this compression ratio thing. Hopefully, it's just pure power and we've got to do a better job. 

“But if it is the compression thing, then I will be disappointed that the FIA allowed that to be the case, that it's not to the book.

“I will be pushing my team to do the same thing so we can get more powerful.”

When asked by RacingNews365 if it can be considered a positive that Mercedes advantage may only last seven races if it's compression ratio-related, Hamilton replied: “Then the season is done.

“Well, not done, but seven races, a few months, you lose a lot of points when you're a second behind in qualifying.

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Hamilton got 'out of sync' during qualifying

Hamilton enters the new season hoping for a more positive showing than his first campaign with Ferrari in 2025.

However, his fastest Q3 time was almost one second down on Russell's effort, suggesting Ferrari has substantial work to do in order to get itself in the mix.

Explaining his qualifying session, Hamilton said: “It's been a great weekend up until Q2 basically. I was feeling good, really happy with the car and everything, my engineer and everything. 

“Then we got to Q2, we basically lost power. On the medium tyre, we were looking solid.

“When we ended up going back out, we ended up behind more people, losing more temperature in the tyres.

“Then we just got out of sync and we didn't get great laps after that.”