The Mercedes crisis seemed somewhat difficult to resolve, since neither of its two drivers felt comfortable with the radical W13 that they presented for the 2022 season and they had many porpoising problems.
However, the week of rest between the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix and the first appointment in the history of Formula 1 in Miami seems to have been what they needed in the Silver Arrows, confirming those “various directions” in the development that they had found, as the team leader himself, Toto Wolff , assured.
In free practice for the test on American soil they managed to finish within a few thousandths of Charles Leclerc’s best time with George Russell in the morning, and managed to finish as the fastest at the end of the afternoon session with the young Briton.
The seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton, for his part, did not go beyond 8th and 4th place in these practices prior to qualifying day. Although an improvement on his performance at Imola, the #44 remains calm, explaining that the real fire comes later in the weekend.
“It’s just a practice, everyone does something different here. I don’t think they show their true pace, but it’s tough in these temperatures,” Hamilton said. “It seems to me that we are faster, and then they explain to us that we have definitely improved in some way.”
“I’m not sure where that improvement is, but we still have the porpoising , so we haven’t solved it. I think that, little by little, with the improvement of the car we will achieve it,” said the seven-time champion.
“There are positive things from this first day. I’m still fighting with the car, although George [Russell] seemed to be doing well,” continued the Mercedes driver . “We’re trying a bunch of different things and we hope to get better.”
The new Miami layout is quite a challenge for the drivers, as has been seen with the accident of Carlos Sainz, who went against the protections in the most twisty section and caused a red flag.
This is how Hamilton saw that area: “The track is quite good to drive, except for the chicane, it is very narrow. It reminds me of being in a car park when I was six or seven years old and I was driving a kart between the cars, it is a curve that maybe they can remove it and improve the track.
The fastest man of the day, George Russell, was perfect with the car, although he maintains the same dynamic as his teammate by not understanding what is happening.
“I don’t understand it to be honest, because we have porpoising . We knew before this weekend that these conditions would suit us better, because we had a lot of problems with the tires heating up, even in Bahrain.”
“But this is the first hot race of the season, so for sure that has played a role, but yes, the car is working well, it’s only Friday, so don’t get carried away,” said the young Mercedes driver.
Asked if the updates to the W13 had helped him to be the best of the day, he said: “I’m not too sure, to be honest, because when I finished FP1 I went to the stewards about the pitlane incident with Ocon, and then straight to Free Practice 2.”
“I was working with my engineers to maximize the set-up and let them know if this was the direction to go,” he continued. “It’s been a very productive day for us, and probably the most productive Friday we’ve ever had.”
“What I would say is that training doesn’t mean anything, and that tomorrow we go out on the track again,” said the one who is running as the best of the Brackley team for this difficult year 2022 with continuous porpoising .
