© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
After the Qatar Grand Prix FP1&2, Lewis Hamilton complains his car is “a little bit slow”, while Andrew Shovlin says “there’s a bit of work to get Lewis happy”.
Lewis Hamilton didn’t have a particularly good Friday in Qatar, he finished both FP1 and FP2 in P4.
“I don’t even know how big the gap is,” Hamilton said.
“But I’m off, so I’m definitely not close. Driving-wise, it’s OK, it’s all high-speed corners so it’s definitely physical, but then the track’s quite nice.”
During the first free practice session Hamilton suffered some front wing damage from riding the kerbs, but he says the damage was not serious.
“No real issues and yeah, there’s a little bit of damage just from riding kerbs, but nothing too serious, hopefully. I’m a little bit slow, so I need to figure that out.”
Lewis was also asked to give his comments on the fact that the FIA decided to deny a right of review for his and Max Verstappen’s Brazilian Grand Prix incident.
“I don’t have any thoughts on it,” the Briton said.
“I was not a part of it and I have been focusing on trying to do my weekend.”
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Lewis’ team-mate Valtteri Bottas had a much better time on Friday, as he topped Free Practice 2.
“The day started nicely with the setup up,” the Finn said.
“Actually, the balance was pretty good in the first run and only minor tweaks were to be done in FP2. So, that is an ideal way to start a weekend on a new track.
“I think the team did a good job with the guestimation of the set-up.”
Although he managed to take P1, Bottas thinks there is still room for improvement.
“Even with two sessions, we can’t get the full speed that is available so we keep working. It is good practice, but it is practice and we try to learn as much as we could. The pace seems good.
“The feeling was okay and that is promising for the rest of the weekend,” concluded the Finn.
Considering how well Bottas’ FP2 went, Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin is optimistic that Lewis’ car can also be brought up to speed.
“The whole day has been about learning on this new circuit,” Shovlin said.
“You do a lot of simulation work and the big question is does it match? The car is working well, comes in about where we expected.
“A strong day from Valtteri overall we’re pretty pleased with it. Today, Valtteri looked like the man out there. Quick on the single lap, very good on the long run.
“If the car is working well, we’ll get the car working well with Lewis. It’s been an encouraging day. There’s a bit of work to get Lewis happy, Red Bull will be working on their own problems overnight.
“So we’ve got to work on keeping whatever advantage we’ve got,” concluded the Briton.
