Hamilton: “the worst balance I’ve ever had”
The Briton experienced one of the most difficult races of his season this weekend in Baku, finishing ninth. He owes this result in part to the numerous balance problems experienced by his Mercedes, forcing him to pull on the steering wheel to turn the car in the corners.
This is not translatable.
A superb Friday but in decline on Saturday and Sunday
« I hardly changed anything on the car, because I didn’t want to ruin anything, and the tires wouldn’t work. All day, they didn’t work », summarized Hamilton, very frustrated by how things turned out. While he seemed on track to be one of the contenders for pole position, the future Ferrari driver only finished seventh in qualifying after his team discovered that one of the components of his car was not properly assembled, which forced him to try a different setup that did not pay off. In parallel, his poor position in qualifying prompted Mercedes to change his engine, which forced him to start from the pit lane.
On a technical circuit where overtaking is not easy, the race promised to be difficult and unfortunately, this trend was confirmed on Sunday with a race finished in a lackluster ninth place, greatly helped by the collision between Sainz and Perez towards the end of the race. Frustration was palpable on Hamilton’s face at the end of the Grand Prix, the Brit explaining that he struggled with major handling issues, forcing him to tug at his steering wheel and drive in a different way to get his Mercedes to turn. « It was probably the worst balance I’ve ever had, » declared Hamilton. « I had so much front end downforce and nothing at the back. I had to tug at the wheel to break the grip at the front and slide the car through every turn. It was the strangest way to drive. »
Toto Wolff justifies Hamilton’s penalty.
An uncomfortable situation for the Mercedes driver, worsened by the fact that he had to fight in the pack after starting from the back of the grid. The head of the German team, Toto Wolff, explained the reasons for this choice, specifying that the team is pinning high hopes on the Austin Grand Prix, where it will introduce its new floor, and that Baku represented the best race to climb back up thanks to its long straight lines. “We decided to change the engine here and we knew it would be a tough race, as it’s so hard to overtake in Baku,” said the Austrian. “And that’s exactly what it was. As soon as you get closer, you overheat the tires and then you fall back.”
« There were two different philosophies, and we discussed them at length. You just have to swallow the pill here because starting from P7, we didn’t know where it would lead us, or you do it in Austin. But we believe Austin is an opportunity, so that’s the decision we made. Good or bad, I don’t know. It was a difficult choice.
An inconsistency that the team cannot explain
Mercedes hopes that this new development will provide answers to the team, which had decided this weekend to revert to an old floor model, which did not fully satisfy in terms of the performance of the two cars, very inconsistent from one day to another, or even from one stint to another, as exemplified by George Russell. The winner of the Austrian Grand Prix experienced a race with two faces, with a very difficult first part of the race with the medium tires, and a second stint with the hard tires, where he was one of the fastest men on the track. Toto Wolff emphasized the versatile performances.
« A difficult start to the race, I think it’s complicated when you’re in a train and fighting for a position, but clearly our car is not good enough. And the second relay was really amazing. Difficult at the beginning, but once the car found its balance, because George was driving it the way it should be driven, we were sometimes the fastest car, » explained the Austrian, who reveals that the pace of the cars varies from one Grand Prix to another depending on the track configuration, the correct use of tires, and the balance of the cars, a factor lacking in Mercedes and Red Bull, which explains their underperformance since the return of Formula 1 to Zandvoort after the summer break.
The Brackley team must nevertheless react quickly to find the path to victory once again. Its balance issues must be resolved as soon as possible, because Singapore is a track where drivers need a stable car to navigate the circuit’s many turns and avoid accidents, since just like in Baku, the walls are very close and mistakes can happen quickly.
