Lewis Hamilton expects his struggles to continue with no immediate fix to his issues with the ground-effect cars, which he terms his worst phase of F1 career.
Despite the sprint pole and win in China, Ferrari’s Hamilton has struggled to get the best out of the car especially in qualifying. The low result in qualifying has resulted in difficulties in making recovery in races. Last weekend’s Saudi Arabian GP was another downer for the Brit.
He stated that he gained nothing from the weekend and that his struggles is to continue on whether in Miami or beyond as there is no immediate fix to his issues. He can’t see massive difference to Charles Leclerc, but still hasn’t been able to extract the performance out of it.
“I don’t have an answer for you, yeah,” said Hamilton to media. “It’s nothing, struggling with balance, struggling to feel the car beneath me, but yeah, there’s no particular thing. It’s just, there’s nothing to say, ‘hey, this is the issue’. I mean, he’s been driving this car for a long time, so he definitely knows it really well, but there’s plenty in the data, for sure.
“I mean, honestly, it doesn’t look massively different in the data, just that you’re slower through the corners. I don’t think it’s going to make a difference. I think I’ll struggle also in Miami. I don’t know how much longer I’ll struggle for, but it’s definitely painful. Not particularly [things will improve], I’ll just try and improve [myself].
“I don’t anticipate that but we (Hamilton and Leclerc) do have slightly different setups so I have to look and see whether that setup is the way that Charles likes to be set. Him and his side are definitely obviously doing a better job than us. At the moment there’s no fix. This is how it’s going to be for the rest of the year. It’s just going to be painful,” summed up Hamilton.
In Saudi Arabia, nothing worked for him. He conceded that the ground-effect car has been the worst for him. He had similar struggles with Mercedes. It has continued on. “In qualifying, it’s me extracting the performance,” said Hamilton. “In the race in Saudi Arabia, I tried everything and the car just didn’t want to work with us.
“[The ground-effect era has been] the worst. And no, I don’t know anything about next year’s car if I’m being honest, so I’m not having any time to think about it, so let’s hope. Less ground effects, let’s hope that things shift a little bit,” summed up Hamilton.
Here’s Frederic Vasseur backing Lewis Hamilton
Here’s Charles Leclerc on maximum in Saudi Arabian GP
