Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton says he is surprised by the gains made by Ferrari since the F1 Hungarian GP, where he reckons they were nowhere.
As whispers in regards to the legality of Ferrari’s engines get louder, Mercedes’ Hamilton has spoken on their seemingly rapid development, which has left other teams flabbergasted, especially their immediate rivals as they begin to lag behind.
The Italian marque’s started the season with a supreme straight-line advantage, but they’ve since gained a shocking amount of time in corners as well, being quicker than Mercedes at circuits like Singapore, where the silver arrows were expected to dominate.
This led to some talk up and down the paddock, where even suggested that Ferrari may have an illegal trick up their sleeve regarding their power unit, with the teams even asking the FIA to look into their power unit which now seems unbeatable in qualifying.
“It’s been confusing,” started Hamilton. “They’ve been quick on low downforce circuits [with] long straights and then all of a sudden they’re quick in the turns. They weren’t good in Hungary, they were terrible in Budapest.
“[In fact] miles off with a circuit that needs a lot of downforce, but then they’ve come to circuits shortly after that and they’ve found so much time, and nothing looks like it’s changed massively on the car so I don’t really know what’s happening there.
“All I can do is try and focus on us. They’ll be quick on the straights here [in Mexico]. That one big straight might make it quite a big difference. We could lose half a second just on that straight alone, who knows?
“But, all I can do is try and make sure I get everything and more out of my car. It is definitely kind of surprising. Obviously, as I said, they went through a couple of difficult races towards the end of the break.
“I don’t know if they came with a new engine, as far as I’m aware, but, some of their engines, even the ones that they’ve still been racing previously have come up with an upgrade and been even faster than before.
“And, once our [Mercedes’] engine comes out, it doesn’t improve at all. For its power range, it is what it is, but their’s seems to change, so that’s a bit odd.” Hamilton, however, did give credit to Ferrari for their aerodynamic progress thus far.
“They have, obviously added more downforce, I think they’ve understood the characteristics of the car more, got it in a better sweet spot, which is good for them,” he said. “So, we just need to work harder. That’s all I can say.”
Here’s what other F1 racers said about environment topic
Here’s what Lewis Hamilton said
The story was written by Duncan Leahy and edited by Darshan Chokhani