Hamilton must charm his venomous car to save Mercedes’ F1 season

Regardless of how Sunday morning’s Australian Grand Prix plays out, for Lewis Hamilton just crossing the line must be counted as success. He enjoys a wide range of interests but snake-handler was surely never one he anticipated having to adopt as he wrestles with a positively venomous Mercedes that may have already cost him any hope of an eighth Formula One championship.

The race in Melbourne will likely mean a continuation of the fascinating fight between the frontrunners, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who took pole and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who was just behind him. In an object lesson of the travails facing Mercedes this season, Hamilton and his teammate George Russell managing fifth and sixth on the grid was considered a success. Comparatively it was, Hamilton was 16th in qualifying at the last round in Saudi Arabia.

This was a small victory then but its context is what really matters for the bigger picture of the season ahead. Hamilton was still a full second off the front of the grid, moreover he had done it by wrangling his recalcitrant car on the very edge, with the constant threat it would rear up and bite him.

He has been blunt about the problems facing Mercedes thus far this season but in Melbourne there was a suggestion it was almost getting personal.

“The problem is when you push that car a little bit more she is quite spiteful,” he said. “She is like a viper or like a rattlesnake, you never know.”

Mercedes’ issues are well documented and in Melbourne they were laid painfully bare. Their car was strong in sector one and solid in the second but in the final sector the time fell away in vast chunks, unable to attack the high-speed corners. The car is still suffering from the violent jarring known as porpoising