Mercedes hold emergency meeting after Lewis Hamilton claims team didn't listen to him

Mercedes have held an 'emergency meeting' following last weekend's start of the Formula One season, after Lewis Hamilton called out the car.

It was not a good start to the year for Mercedes, who had to watch on as Red Bull picked up where they left off and drove off into the distance for an easy 1-2 finish.

Worse still for the eight time constructors' champions, Ferrari also remain ahead of them and now even Aston Martin look like they could be faster, at least Fernando Alonso is.

All in all, it was a pretty tough weekend for both Hamilton and teammate George Russell, who also finished down in seventh place behind Lance Stroll.

Following their poor race, which came off the back of last season's bad year, in which Hamilton didn't win a race for the first time in his career, the 38-year-old revealed his frustration.

The former McLaren driver claimed that he'd told the team what they needed to do to improve the car, but they hadn't listened to his advice.

According to reports in Italy, the English based German team have held an 'emergency meeting' in the past few days, following the race.

It claims that technical director Mike Elliot was handed an ultimatum to improve the quality of the W14, and fix the problems they are having.

It was a tough race weekend for Hamilton. Image: Alamy

Hamilton is only under contract for the rest of the season, when he'd be free to walk away from the team and join one of their rivals.

With Merc struggling over last year, and the beginning of this one, there has been increased speculation that he could either leave them or retire from the sport altogether.

The rumours of that were strongest when he missed out on the 2021 title to Max Verstappen on the final lap, but he has since looked like continuing his career for as long as possible.

Team Principal Toto Wolff thinks that things will be fine however, saying, "The Lewis situation is you heard him on the radio. He is an integral part of the team, picking the team up and we are all sticking together and I don’t think that is going to change just because we had a start that was really bad.

"We have won eight constructors’ championships and six drivers’ championships with him and that relationship holds.

"As much as being transparent as to how we need to turn the car around, it is not the point to talk about the driver situation in 2024.

"It is far too early, we need to all push in then same direction, the drivers, the engineers, all the management rather than throwing in the towel. We have never done that and we will not do it."