Hamilton: “This year’s car is not my worst car”

Lewis Hamilton’s season has been very complicated so far. After an initial podium finish in Bahrain, the Mercedes driver is facing numerous challenges in setting up his car and is often being outperformed by his new teammate George Russell.

This situation reminds the seven-time world champion of the difficulties encountered during the 2009 season. At the time, the British driver was racing for McLaren and defending his first world title won the previous season. The year 2009 marked a turning point in the history of F1. The introduction of a completely new technical regulation resulted in a disruption of the hierarchy compared to previous years. From a McLaren-Ferrari battle in 2008, the title was fought between Brawn GP and Red Bull in 2009.

Hamilton’s McLaren MP4-24 was a car that was significantly dominating in terms of performance at the beginning of the season. The Woking team having missed the technical turning point, it took time for Martin Whitmarsh’s men to bounce back. Nevertheless, McLaren managed to win two races thanks to Hamilton, in Hungary and in Singapore.

Number 44 did not hesitate to compare his current situation to that of 13 years ago: “The 2009 car was by far the worst car I have driven. The current car is not far from that experience.” And he added, “The 2009 scenario? It was only my third year in the sport, and it was a new generation of cars. I remember the head aerodynamics engineer’s face during the winter tests, telling me, ‘We have achieved our goal.'”

« The new rules provided for 50% less downforce on the cars, so when the team told me they had designed a car with 50% less downforce, I thought to myself, “That doesn’t sound very good.” But I didn’t have much experience with the team, and from the first tests, we realized that some teams had more downforce than the previous year. »

This season is different because no one said at the beginning of the year that we had reached our goal. We have been super innovative in design and our wind tunnel told us that we had very good downforce, but unfortunately, there are things that we cannot see in the wind tunnel, like porpoising. We encountered this problem that is tougher to solve than we had imagined.

The Mercedes driver who finished 13th in the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix concludes: « What does not kill you, makes you stronger. We will find a solution one way or another.