Lewis Hamilton’s weekend at the 2022 Formula 1 French Grand Prix started in an unusual way, as he missed the first free practice on Friday to comply with the FIA rule that requires teams to add a driver debutante in two of these sessions throughout the year.
Thus, he left his seat to Nyck de Vries , who did his job to continue developing the W13, but once the British returned to the single-seater, he was able to improve the sensations little by little.
In qualifying, despite Mercedes’ expectations to go fast at Paul Ricard, he remained far off the pace of the lead, more than a second and a half at times, but that didn’t stop him from overtaking his team-mate, George Russell, to be fourth and start in the second row with Sergio Pérez on Sunday.
However, the seven-time world champion showed what made the Silver Arrows lose so much time to the leaders, and it seems that power unit and high-speed downforce are the problems with Brackley ‘s cars.
“On the last lap, my first sector was just as fast as theirs [Ferrari and Red Bull], but then it’s all on the straights, we lose a lot there,” acknowledged the Englishman. “I don’t know what the difference is, but it must be at least half a second just on the straights, and then in the high speed part, in the last corners, they run away from us, as if they have less resistance and more downforce in the curves”.
“In the last sector it was like six or seven tenths, which is crazy,” Hamilton said. “A big part of it is just full throttle! But that’s not just aerodynamic drag, as for some reason they are able to go much faster through high-speed corners than us, I don’t get it, but we’ll keep working on it.”
Asked if the Briton found his deficit to the best “disheartening,” he said: “No, it’s just you do one lap, and then they tell you you’re 1.7 seconds behind and you’re like… . [makes a confused face]”.
“Then you do a really good turn, and you’re 1.1 seconds behind, so it’s like, wow!” he continued. “There’s nothing I can do to change that, and obviously everyone is working as hard as they can, every weekend we come up with different things to try to improve, and sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
“It’s clear that it’s difficult for everyone. What I’m focused on, or what I already said at the beginning of the year, is trying to understand this car more, and working closely with the team to say what are the parts that I want. and those that do not of this car for the next course”, expressed Hamilton.
“I have to say: ‘this is what I don’t want this year, this is what we will need next season’, and try to direct it so that at least, hopefully this season, we get something better, but that the car of the year that comes is one with whom we can fight”, he added.
Regarding his hopes of winning in the remainder of the course, Lewis Hamilton remained positive, and after seeing the performance of Mercedes, he believes that he can battle soon: “I came here this weekend with the hope that we were going to be three tenths , and we’re a second away.”
“So with the three tenths I was hoping for, and if in the next race we can get a couple of tenths closer, then we will be in contention in Budapest, although if everything continues like this, then it’s going to take a bit, but it’s not impossible.”
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