Following practice at Spa-Francorchamps, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell expressed dissatisfaction with their W15 cars, despite Mercedes having won two of the previous three Formula 1 races.
During practice for the Belgian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton said his Mercedes felt “completely different,” and he’s hoping the heavens will open during qualifying.
The Silver Arrows have had a great few weeks after making significant progress to once again challenge the elite teams. The high point occurred at Silverstone when Hamilton won his first race in 945 days after they locked out the front row with George Russell on pole.
The seven-time Formula One champion finished on the podium in Hungary the previous weekend as well, but at the end of Friday’s Formula Two, he was over a second slower than leader Lando Norris. He was obviously pretty concerned about how big that gap was and about how his W15 had felt like it was on track.
“It was a pretty bad day,” he remarked. Really, I have no idea what to say. It has obviously felt fantastic during the last few races. That feels like a whole different thing now. We worked on it, and while the first session wasn’t great, the second session went really well after we made some adjustments.
We had a lot of balance problems the entire lap, and once I hit the soft tire, I was unable to get any better. But this session was better. All others, however, fared even better. Therefore, it is not good to be 1.2 seconds behind.”
Hamilton once again demonstrated his skill in the rain during his masterclass at Silverstone, despite the unpredictable weather. With showers moving across the Ardennes Forest, the British player may just get his wish for more rainy conditions during qualifying.
“We’re not going to be in the greatest of places right now if it’s dry,” he continued. However, we can definitely make some changes over night. Rain, in my opinion, opens things up a little bit, so maybe we can perform better. The car ought to perform better in the rain than it does in the dry, in my opinion.
Russell, a teammate, expressed dissatisfaction with the way his W15 felt as well and mentioned three cars that, in his opinion, are currently moving faster on this track. “To find some lap time, we have some work to do overnight,” he stated.
“Today, it seemed like the McLarens and Max Verstappen’s Red Bull were one step ahead of us. To hopefully find some gains and get closer to them, we will have to sift through the data and work hard in the Brackley simulator. Sure, we can accomplish that.
“If we succeed, tomorrow will undoubtedly be a very different day. Rain is also predicted for tomorrow, which will introduce another element into the mix. We hope to continue our recent trend of having strong Fridays followed by the others catching up by Saturday.
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