if it wants to prevent Mercedes from running away with the
championship. New F1 regulations were introduced this year, with
Mercedes emerging from the opening rounds with the most competitive
package. After winning the first six races of the season, Mercedes
was finally beaten last weekend at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand
Prix, where Hamilton claimed his first victory as a Ferrari driver.
The win came at the same weekend the Italian squad introduced a
major upgrade package, which helped the team take a step forward.
Hamilton insisted Ferrari cannot afford to stand still as it looks
to close the gap to Mercedes in the championship standings. “It’s
so early in the season to get to this point,” Hamilton told media
including RacingNews365 . “These guys have really listened and
really worked hard to add performance and be innovative. This year
is all about innovation. “We came out with the bit on the rear
exhaust. We came out with, what else was it, the rear wing, the
Macarena . “This is what I was asking for last year. It was like
this team has to be the leaders in that, and they’ve shown that
they can and they will.” However, Hamilton acknowledged that
Ferrari is still not where it needs to be to maintain its presence
over Mercedes in the coming races. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead
of us,” he said. “By no means is this something that’s just going
to happen all the time. “We’ve got a heavy, heavy, steep mountain
to climb up ahead of us to try to do this as Mercedes has all year
so far.”