Lewis Hamilton says the W15 is “definitely not that evil sister” of its predecessors, and adds “there’s a lot more potential in it that we just haven’t quite extracted yet”.

Mercedes entered the 2024 season hoping that their newest car would be able to challenge for top positions on the grid.

Unfortunately this did not happen, and in the first two races of the season, the W15 performed possibly even worse than its predecessors.

However, ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton said he still believes the car is better than Mercedes’ 2022 and 2023 challengers.

“It’s definitely not that evil sister or anything like that,” the Briton said.

“I do think we have an amazing car, it has a lot of potential in it. We just haven’t maximised it at the moment through set-up.

“We’re obviously not happy with the performance in those first couple of races. But I think there’s a lot more potential in it that we just haven’t quite extracted yet.

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“So, that’s what everyone’s focus is on, just trying to understand the car. We’re hoping this weekend is a step forward.

“A huge amount of work has gone on – everyone’s heads are down in the numbers. I feel positive this weekend. We’ve had two not such great races, but there’s a long way ahead.”

Lewis added he believes that, despite suffering early setbacks, the team can still turn around their performance.

“I think we had a really good winter or three-day test that we had. We’ve made big improvements with this car, just in terms of generally driving it, it feels like a much, much better car. Much more like a race car.

“But it can drop off one end or the other end. It’s a narrow working window with these types of cars. I do believe that we’ve still got that winning mindset within the team.

“I have absolute faith that these guys are going to fix any of the problems that we have, we will get there.

“The fact that Max has 58 points and I have eight points after two races, if you’re logical about it…

“You have to be conscious it’s a very long season also, so things can change but it’s going to be very hard to catch those guys.

“Their car, they drop it on the track and it just works. For us, we are really, really grinding to pick up that performance and get it to where we need to be.

“The dream and the goal is still, if we can get wins this year, or podiums this year, I think that could be really amazing.

“To finish second in constructors last year given the issues we had with the car just shows what we can do with something that’s not even perfect.

“So I’m hoping that we can do that again this year,” Hamilton concluded.