Six tenths in qualifying and a full thirty seconds within the race. Hamilton’s hole to his teammate in Jeddah was vital and uncovered the challenges he’s dealing with — difficulties that aren’t restricted to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, however have prolonged throughout the latest races. The triple-header outdoors Europe has introduced little satisfaction.
That disappointment got here by means of clearly in Lewis Hamilton’s phrases after the race, as he didn’t disguise his frustration or concern, particularly as a result of, at current, he has no clear concepts on methods to get well the lacking tenths to shut in on Charles Leclerc — solely hypotheses, circling round with out decision.
It was no shock, then, that in interviews Hamilton opened with a really blunt message that went straight to the guts of the matter: “There’s nothing constructive to take from immediately, simply Charles [Leclerc] ending on the rostrum, which is nice for the staff,” mentioned the Briton, clearly disheartened after a race that supplied little for him.
“It was horrible, not fulfilling in any respect. I used to be sliding all over the place. Within the first stint, I had quite a lot of oversteer and the automobile simply wouldn’t flip, with huge degradation. Within the second stint, I discovered barely higher stability, however even then the tempo was utterly missing, so total it went fairly badly,” Lewis defined.
He had instantly gained a place on Carlos Sainz in the beginning because of an ideal launch from his grid slot, transferring as much as sixth. From that time on, apart from a wonderful protection in opposition to Lando Norris that lasted a number of laps — particularly by means of managing DRS — Lewis Hamilton couldn’t discover a higher rhythm, remaining caught in no man’s land.
He was too quick for the midfield runners behind him however, sadly, additionally too gradual to problem even the 2 Mercedes, regardless of the W16s struggling a noticeable drop in tyre efficiency.
The core challenge is that, though Lewis Hamilton admitted he was struggling in medium-to-high-speed corners — significantly the place confidence within the automobile is essential at nook entry — he additionally had no concrete explanations for his issues.
“I don’t have a solution. I’m struggling. The stability… I battle to really feel the automobile beneath me. However yeah, there’s nothing particular. There’s nothing that makes you say: ‘That’s the issue.’”
“Even in Miami, I feel I’ll be in bother. I don’t understand how for much longer I’ll maintain struggling, but it surely’s positively irritating,” he added, earlier than drawing comparisons with Leclerc. The Monegasque clearly has deeper information of the Ferrari’s habits and the traits of the ability unit, however he’s additionally tailored his driving type to extract essentially the most from the SF-25.
“Properly, I imply, he [Leclerc] has been driving this automobile for a very long time, so he positively is aware of it very effectively. There’s rather a lot to see within the knowledge. Truthfully, it doesn’t seem like there’s a large distinction. It’s simply that you simply’re slower within the corners,” Lewis Hamilton defined, declaring how telemetry reveals a transparent mid-corner velocity deficit in comparison with Charles Leclerc.
“Now we have barely completely different setups. I have to see if perhaps that’s the one the automobile prefers. And yeah, he and his facet of the storage are positively doing a greater job. For the time being, there’s no resolution. It’ll be like this for the remainder of the 12 months. It’s going to be painful. In qualifying it’s about extracting all of the potential, and immediately within the race… I actually gave it the whole lot, I attempted the whole lot, however the automobile simply didn’t wish to cooperate.” – the seven-time Components 1 world champion concluded on the finish of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
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