Despite his Mercedes W15’s lackluster performance this season, Lewis Hamilton has generally been optimistic; however, following a challenging day in Melbourne on Friday, he became more pessimistic.
After a difficult day on the track in Melbourne on Friday, Lewis Hamilton said he had lost faith in his Mercedes W15 vehicle.
In Formula One, the seven-time world champion performed admirably, recording the ninth fastest time. However, in the second session of the day, setup changes caught the British driver off guard, leaving him stranded in 18th place on the timesheets.
Mercedes kept her word to “experiment” during the course of the day. Ultimately, however, it was a somber Hamilton who acknowledged at the conclusion of Friday’s racing that he was not feeling optimistic about his chances this coming weekend.
“I obviously don’t feel great,” Hamilton remarked. I think it was one of the worst sessions I’ve had in a long time. The car felt great during the first run of FP1, but things only got worse from there. Overall, FP1 felt pretty good.
“It was difficult, but I made some significant changes into—well, we made some significant changes into FP2. There are good things from our FP1 run, but after that session, I feel the least confident I’ve ever felt with this car.”
For the team, those setup adjustments that hindered Hamilton’s performance in FP2 were crucial. Mercedes announced in the lead-up to this weekend’s action that they planned to “experiment” in practice because they are having trouble figuring out why their car is limited in some situations, especially in fast corners.
Furthermore, team principal Toto Wolff stated following Free Practice 2 that they had not been able to significantly improve the car despite their best efforts. “We’ve accomplished an experiment, but we haven’t unlocked performance,” the Austrian stated.
“I believe that we made a really drastic setup adjustment with Lewis during the second session, and it has completely backfired. However, this is the reason we are holding these meetings; additionally, things went a little better. However, our performance is inadequate for more than one lap. It wasn’t a good day all around.
It would be untrue if I claimed not to be frustrated. Yes, we are, given how hard we’re trying in every direction, but it doesn’t appear that we’ve yet discovered the magic bullet that will allow us to proceed in the correct direction.
“But we have to keep trying because we’ve seen this car’s performance in the past, and we have everything we need to get above that. I don’t want to go back and say we’re just not good under these regulations. And we’ll do so.”
Leave a Reply