© Sebastian Kawka for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
Lewis Hamilton has said on several occasions that the performance gets away from his in qualifying. Now, he explains what exactly is causing the issues.
Quite often this season, Lewis Hamilton has been performing well in practice sessions, but then in qualifying he would have a hard time coming to grips with his car.
He even said that he couldn’t understand what causes such a sudden drop in performance.
In Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying, however, the car finally felt better and he managed to qualify in P3. Afterwards he explained what he believes is causing the issues.
“I still feel like I lost performance going into the, you know… I still lost a little bit going into quali,” the Briton said.
“It’s all about perspective. Maybe they just moved forwards, but I definitely feel like there was a little bit more. But just as you start to push the car, it doesn’t like it.
“So in practice, when you leave a little bit of margin, the car feels quite nice. But it’s when you start to really lean on it to try and get that extra bit of lap time out where we really struggle.
“And I think it’s all in the tyres. So you saw in P1, I was seven tenths down due to an issue with the blankets. And then we got it sorted for the following sessions.
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“So, it puts you a little bit on the back foot. But yeah, otherwise, the car, as I said, it’s good that we’re up here and it’s the best qualifying I’ve had this year, so I’m really grateful for it.”
After the race, Lewis further explained his thoughts on the issue.
“I mean, our pace is where we were basically, third and fourth to this weekend. But I think our car has generally been very, it’s quite peaky.
“And that means that it’s often out of balance. It’s very rare that it’s in balance and it’s nice and smooth through a corner.
“And so set-up has been… I’ve obviously experimented a lot with the set-up over the last couple years but the car doesn’t really like any of the set-ups but one, and it’s slowly starting to get just become nicer to drive.
“And then ultimately, tyres. The tyres have been a huge issue for me. I think we got it half decent this weekend.
“If i can make some improvements over the course of the next races I think there’s more performance there,” Hamilton concluded.
