Talking to the Australian media ahead of the Albert Park race this weekend, Hamilton admitted he'll be praying for a point this weekend. Although the team has made some progress on the McLaren MP4-24 during the last test at Jerez, the car still lacks downforce ahead of the season opener. Quite conscious of the poor performance level of his 2009 challenger, Hamilton admitted he'd be lucky to leave Australia up on the scoreboard.
“I think if we think optimistically then we can get a point. But I don't think so, somehow. We have to stay positive, and anything can happen, and we can get some points – last year only seven cars finished the race so anything is possible – but in terms of true pace at the moment I don't think we are quick enough. But we will see tomorrow,” said Hamilton.
The British driver insisted, however, that the Woking-based team has the power to recover in the upcoming races, especially since the low scores during testing this year has led to all mechanics putting some extra hours of work into the car.
“For sure, we have all taken it personally. It is affecting all of us in the team. There is a huge amount of intelligent and talented people around us who have now seen what the problem is, although it is a little bit late in finding out the problem, now they are working as hard as they can to fix the problem we have and improve the car. This is a very, very strong team and if anyone can do it, we can. I hope!” added Hamilton.
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