Lewis Hamilton opens up on the issues he is facing as he hopes things work out for better in Miami, while Carlos Sainz and Esteban Ocon chip in about adaptation.
It hasn’t been the best of starts to the Ferrari career of Hamilton. Apart from the one up in China, it has been downhill for the Brit, especially in qualifying. He has managed to recover in races, but it is still far off from the podium. Nothing has worked as he said after the race in Saudi Arabia.
He pointed towards the ground-effect cars, as he had difficulties at Mercedes even post the run of F1 titles he won. He’s doing things behind the scenes to be at a decent space and had simulator sessions between the races, but he is not 100% if things will work immediately.
Other changers like Williams’ Sainz and Haas’ Ocon are in a similar boat. The Spaniard reckons it should take one cycle to be 100% in-sync with the car and the whole system which includes the team too. They also agree with Hamilton on the current generation of cars making such switches difficult.
The narrow window never helps and the drivers are limited in options. Ocon feels the experienced drivers are at a loss against the rookies, who come from F2 and adjust to the first F1 car as per the requirement. They don’t have to shed as much knowledge of a previous car.
What’s ailing –
Hamilton: “Many things. Lots of different things. There’s not one particular. Not particularly – I mean, when I joined Mercedes, the first six months were tough getting attuned to working with new people. Obviously, the engineers I’m working with now are used to setting up a car for a different driver and a different driving style, and I’m used to driving a car with a different driving style. So it’s a combination of a bunch of different things. You’re generally always a mixture of the two [driving instinctively and also consciously], but I’m definitely working hard to adjust to this one for sure.”
Things will work in Miami –
Hamilton: “No clue. We’ll do the best we can. We’ve not got upgrades or anything this weekend, but we continue to try and optimise the car. Obviously, Charles in the last race did a fantastic job and showed what the car can do in a race. So the goal is to try to replicate that. Yep, spent some good time in Italy. We went through a lot, did some good sim running. There are things that we’ve made adjustments to. We’ll see how they work this weekend.”
Takes time –
Hamilton: “I can’t really explain it too much. In the Sprint race there’s not a huge amount of changes you make. I think the one thing to take from it is that we didn’t make a lot of changes – if any – going from P1 to quali, whereas on all the other weekends we’ve been tinkering with the car and making it worse. I mean, there are elements of that that are true [differences on getting lap time against settled teammate]. But it’s different for everyone. I really don’t know [how much time it will take]. I generally don’t. We’re working as hard as we can to shorten that, but it could be longer. Who knows?”
How’s Italy –
Hamilton: “Yeah, I love it. Trying to stay off the pizzas and the pasta, which I’m not doing very well with if I’m honest. I was there last week and had like three pizzas in two days. I have my hookup – he keeps bringing me a pizza. I text him late after the day and I’m like, “Hey, can I get a pizza?” He keeps bringing me one. But yeah, I really am enjoying it. Not living in Italy currently, but or spending more time is still something I really want to try and figure out how to do through the year. My Italian is not really progressing, so I’ve probably got to throw myself more into the thick of it. But the team’s been well. Lots of changes, a huge amount of work has been going on from my first days there to adjust certain things, for example in the sim, and everyone’s been really responsive and massively supportive. So I’ve really appreciated it.”
Nothing due to Mercedes time, how motivation now –
Hamilton: “I don’t think it’s anything to do with the past. No, I don’t think it’s anything to do with my past experiences. I just don’t really think about it. I try not to really focus on opinions of people that have no insight into actually what is going on – insights from individuals that have never been in my position. So yeah, I just keep my head down and try to continue to enjoy the work that I do with the people I work with.”
Things with Hamilton, engine difference –
Sainz: “No, I’m not surprised at all. I think for me I expected it to myself and I expected it with him. Because in this sport there’s no secrets and when you are up against two teammates like we are, like Alex and Charles, that they know the team inside out, they are already performing at the maximum that that car can perform. So you can only do just a little bit better or the same as them. You cannot suddenly arrive and be two or three times quicker because it’s not possible. They are already at the limit of the car. So, when you jump to a new team and you’re expected by yourself and by everyone around you to be at that level, it’s going to take time. There’s no secrets. They know a lot more than you. It’s going to take a bit of time. The sooner you make that process and the sooner you are at that level, the better. But for some drivers it might take longer or shorter. Lewis had an amazing weekend in China. He seems to have a bit more trouble now, but it’s going to take time for both.
“For me, this is just one of the 15 things that you have to relearn. Some teams like to use engine braking to turn the car. Others just prefer using more the differential, [some others] use the brake migration, some more the setup of the car, naturally put front-end with aero, others with mechanical, others with pitch, others with ride. You cannot imagine the amount of variability that you can make the car get to a similar lap time in completely different ways. For sure, that might be one of the 15-20 things that I’m trying to still figure out. I’m trying high engine braking in Williams to see if it works; I am trying low, I am trying differential maps, I am trying mechanical balance. I am trying everything every week just to see what the car likes and what it doesn’t. There’s things that suit your style. Others that they don’t. I think it’s that fight and that process that I enjoy. You’re going to get wrong many times, but as long as you enjoy it and you just embrace it, you know you’re going to get it wrong a few times. But you’re also going to, when you click and you get, ah, this works. It’s actually a eureka moment that feels good.”
Ocon: “I think it is very difficult, especially when you change car philosophy because…the Haas car and the Ferrari car have a lot of similarities, so I can relate to Lewis on that side. I have driven the Mercedes as well in the past, so it is a very different way of driving the car or extracting the potential of it. The car feels very different, so it is not easy for sure to adapt to that. But I am sure he will find a way very quickly. In the meantime, I also have to improve, there’s quite a lot of things still as well that there is a way of doing. Its been five races, so things are getting more to normal, there’s more routine now going on, how we prepare weekends and how I feel I drive the car, I know straightaway when something is quite not right or where it should be compared to before where I thought it was normality. The more you drive, the more you learn, but there is at some point there is no adapting to it, you just have to deal with it.”
Timeline to adjustment –
Sainz: “It’s a tricky question because it depends. It depends on how natural the car comes to you. It depends on how natural the relationship with the engineers and that blend comes. I’ve always said that to know a car well, you need at least half a year or a year to experience everything with that car. That doesn’t mean that you cannot perform during that year. This is a different topic. You can perform at 100% or 99% and your 99% might still be pretty good. But at 100%, for sure, there are things that you need half a year to experience. I’m not using it as an excuse. I want to perform like I did in Jeddah from Race 1, even if I’m at 97% instead of 99%. I just know it takes time and I’m going to be demanding of myself.”
If current car is difficult –
Sainz: “This is a good point, actually, because I would say so. These cars nowadays, I feel like you need to drive them in a very specific way to be quick. I feel like the cars of ’21, you could come in with 2 or 3 different driving styles and more or less get to the same lap time because the car would allow you to get to that limit in different ways. I feel the more I get to drive this generation of cars, the more I dig into the data, the more I realise you need to be close-loop to one driving style. If you don’t drive in that way, you’re never going to be quick. It’s just how the car interacts with you, which allows you to drive in that specific way, that you need to make sure you understand. It’s a good point. I think these cars are particularly difficult.”
Ocon: “Yes, for sure [it is harder in this generation of cars]. I don’t think they are forgiving…these cars at all. The way they are stiff, how they bounce, how the tyres react, they are better these tyres, but they always tend to understeer quite a lot mid-corner. I don’t think there’s two ways of driving it, you need to go with one way, there’s no other direction that you can drive the car. You need to choose the quickest way and that’s it, so yeah, I would agree on Carlos definitely.”
Being experienced driver is not useful in this case –
Ocon: “I think it is more the opposite way [that it is difficult to adjust to new car being an experienced driver]. I think if come from like junior formulas and you go straight into that car, you put everything you have learned away and you just go into it and you learn everything again. Now with our experience – I mean Lewis has much more experience than me, he’s drove a lot of different cars but a lot of the same ones as well for a long time. I can understand why it is not easy and I also know it is not easy for me or for Carlos, but we will get there.”
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