Formula 1

F1 News: Lewis Hamilton Loses Hope With His Mercedes W13 After Tricky Practice Session

Lewis Hamilton reveals even more bad news for Mercedes fans as he admits that despite more and more development to the car, nothing is fixing the performance issues they’re having.

FP1 of the Australian Grand Prix was looking more promising for Hamilton and George Russell as the former set the seventh fastest time of the session. But FP2 dampened their spirits with the car being pushed down to P13.

It’s safe to say Hamilton is now feeling the pressure of the car as he talked to the press after this morning’s practice.

On being asked if he felt tired, he answered:

“No I feel good, I feel okay, it was a difficult session.

“It’s just nothing you change on the car makes a difference at the moment, so that’s the difficult thing you know, you’re getting very optimistic and then you make changes and then it doesn’t seem to be wanting to improve.

“We made some changes going into P2 [Practice 2], P1 was better and P2 ended up being a bit harder for us. So I don’t know, just a tricky car.”

Hamilton and Russell used different setups for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but this resulted in very poor performance from the 7-time world champion who ended in P10 after an unlucky run with a pit entrance closure.He’s now admitted that regardless of how much they change the car, they can’t seem to fix their issues:

“Well I don’t think it’s going to be tricky to find our way back, there’s just not a lot we can do, this is the way it is and so we just have to drive with it,” he told the press.

“So that’s just the frustrating thing, you’re trying to push, you’re trying to catch, and even when you do a decent lap you’re 1.2 seconds down, so it’s difficult.”

Russell ended FP2 in front of Hamilton at P11, but fans will still be disappointed with Mercedes not reaching the top 10.

Russell commented on the performance of his car and the pace they need to find:

“Clearly quite a lot, we’re not in the position where we want to be, there’s quite a few midfield cars ahead of us and obviously quite a long way off the pace from the front.

“So we need to work hard tonight, understand the limitations, the car felt alright, it didn’t feel too bad, but it was a bit strange with my soft tyre, I kept on improving and improving, I know a few drivers did that, but it seemed a little bit more extravagant from our side of things.”

Russell even went as far to say that the porpoising was the worst it’s been this Friday:

“We’re definitely porpoising pretty bad into Turn 9, it’s probably the most severe I’ve experienced, but I think it’s something we just have to deal with for the time being.

“We believe that is the fastest way around the track, but maybe it’s not, we need to keep digging into the data and understand, we’ve sort of gone from left, right and centre with the setup and all have resulted in a similar outcome.

“So we need to try and get on top of things and understand what happened.”

He assures fans that he’s still enjoying his time behind the wheel of the W13, however.

“Driving is always cool! And driving around a track like this, but you enjoy it more when you jump out of a car and you see your name towards the top of the timesheet or on top of the timesheet.

“And when you think you’ve done and good lap and look at the timesheet and you’re down in P11, it’s not where we want to be as a team, it’s all about results.”

Alex Harrington

Alex started racing at a young age so certainly knows his way around a car and a track. He can just about put a sentence together too, which helps. He has a great interest in the latest models, but would throw all of his money at a rusty old French classic and a 300ZX. Contact: [email protected]

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