© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
After Japanese Grand Prix Qualifying, Lewis Hamilton says he now knows “exactly where the car is not strong enough” and ‘knows to tell the team to push in this particular area’.
Despite qualifying in P7 for the Japanese Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton is pleased with the current state of the W15.
“I was giving it everything,” the Briton said.
“The team did a really great job this past week making adjustments to our set-up – this is actually the first weekend I’ve not gone crazy with set-up and am not testing a bunch of things, so I’m back to a bit more normal.
“I think we’ve got the car into a much nicer working window and so it’s been really enjoyable driving, it’s just the guys are just a little bit faster.
“We were a second or just over a second off last year to the Red Bull and seven tenths is better. Maybe if we had done something a little bit different maybe we could have been another tenth faster, maybe, but other than that that was everything.
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“I think what it’s giving us is I know exactly where the car is not strong enough, I can feel it in the car, and I know now to tell them to ‘push in this particular area’. But I’m hoping the race will be stronger tomorrow.”
Asked if this means that Mercedes now has a direction to go in with their car, Lewis said:
“I personally believe so, yeah. What we have noticed is track to track it has been really, really hard to get the set-up right and it has been so far out each time.
“In some places it has felt like nothing we can do gets the car in a sweet spot. But this weekend it’s much more in the sweet spot and so I hope that continues in the following races.
“Then we’ve just got to add performance,” Hamilton concluded.
