Jacques Villeneuve raises Lewis Hamilton concern after taking brutal dig at Daniel Ricciardo
Lewis Hamilton struggled in qualifying to get the maximum pace out of the car
REUTERS
Jacques Villeneuve believes Lewis Hamilton has gone 'stale' at Mercedes in the latest brutally honest assessment from the 1997 world champion.
Villeneuve made headlines at the Canadian Grand Prix this week when he delivered a scathing attack on Daniel Ricciardo's place in F1.
He brutally questioned why the Aussie driver was still in the sport having stuggled to beat Yuki Tsunoda at RB this season.
Ricciardo was able to have the last laugh on Saturday with his best qualifying result of the year to put his car fifth on the grid.
Lewis Hamilton struggled in qualifying to get the maximum pace out of the car
REUTERS
Now Villeneuve has turned his attention to Hamilton, who he feels is missing something at Mercedes this season.
He said: "That taste for Lewis at Mercedes is now stale.
"Every driver has a preference with their car. Max will be quick in any car but he will be quicker in a car that suits him.
"Lewis is in the situation where the car is not doing what he is expecting it to, so he is always second guessing.
"There is always more thought process going into his driving which can leave you a thousandth of a second behind and that will make you just that little bit slower.
"It makes it very difficult to set the car up because you cannot pinpoint what the issue is."
He added: “Well if the other person is ahead of you in the championship or has been doing a better job and you are leaving, it’s normal, you have to accept that with the decision you’ve made earlier in the year.
“And it doesn’t seem that Lewis has his anger behind the wheel that he’s had in the past and hopefully he gets it back at Ferrari.
“He needs that new environment to get excited again.
Jacques Villeneuve has not held back this weekend
GETTY
“But Mercedes is doing the opposite of McLaren, where McLaren always say they won’t be good and they go beyond expectation, Mercedes does the opposite.
"Every time they come to a track, ‘Oh, this is better’ and it doesn’t show.”
Hamilton will leave Mercedes to join Ferrari next season and the seven-time world champion has struggled to beat George Russell this year.
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The young British driver moved to 7-1 for the season in qualifying on Saturday when he put his Mercedes on pole ahead of Max Verstappen while Hamilton was down in seventh.
Hamilton wasn't happy with his qualifying pace on Saturday having initially impressed during practice.
"The car was feeling great all weekend and as soon as we got to qualifying, that kind of vanished for me," he said.
"The grip just disappears for me. P3, I had plenty of pace in me, and then get to qualifying and the tyres won't work. Nothing had changed on the car."
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