Lewis Hamilton said that he finds Red Bull's call for the FIA to rein in Mercedes as “funny” - given the success that the Red Bull team had in previous years.
Hamilton is adamant that Mercedes has worked hard to get where it is today.
“I find it quite funny,” he said when asked about Christian Horner's comments. “It's an interesting opinion coming from individuals who have had so much success. Also it's only been one race, so to already have comments after the first race is what I find funny.
“And then on the personal side it was a big step for me to come to this team that had had so many years of poor performance – they hadn't had the success of other teams. Not once did this team ever complain to others in order to equalize things, they just worked their a**es off. We came to this team and saw them making that progress, and now they're the best team, we've pulled together and done an amazing job.
“It's not just me here, it's more than a thousand people working back at the two factories to build the best car, and we've done that with the same rules and the same resources that the other top teams have generally had. I'm really very proud of that. I think it's kind of a funny situation.”
Hamilton is confident that Mercedes can stay ahead as this season unfolds: “With my understanding of the rules and how F1 is, and knowing how limited your time is in the wind tunnel and development, we all have that same amount of time. Providing we push forward the same speed as everyone else, we should stay ahead. I believe the team will do that. Of course we never knew what others were going to do coming into the season, we didn't know how much improvement others would have done.
“But we're obviously very pleased with the work the team has done – obviously we were pretty competitive last year, and to still make an improvement on top of that is pretty exceptional. It's a true showing of how amazing this team is now. If these people stay in the same place, and the right philosophy is taken, this team will be strong for many, many years.”
Meanwhile, Lewis is hoping that he can keep up his Australian GP form.
“It's only one qualifying session and Nico didn't get his qualifying session right. I'm happy that I was able to perform that way and I plan to keep performing in that way. It still wasn't perfect and I can improve, and with the race I think it just continued generally what I was doing for. There's not really much progress – it's small increments.
“I think Nico will be quick this weekend and he'll be pushing as hard as he always did last year in qualifying. I've just got to try and keep up the momentum from the last race if I can.”
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