It was a mixed day for Lewis Hamilton, who brought back home from Baku only two points following a recovery race. The Mercedes driver was supposed to start from P7, but a last minute power unit change forced the seven times World Champion to start from the pit lane with Esteban Ocon.
Hamilton was able to climb his way back up to the top ten, but wasn’t left completely pleased by his performance in Azerbaijan, significantly impacted by the “team decision” of taking up a new engine at the street circuit.
After the end of the race the British driver explained the thought process that went behind the suffered decision, mentioning that a component had been installed in the wrong way on his car no.44.
“Yeah, we had a great car on Friday, and made the tiniest changes into Saturday. One of the components wasn’t correctly built, and then that led us the wrong way then on Saturday. We didn’t find out until the end of the day.
“And being that this race was the strongest place, best place they said, at least, to make the change for the engine. We needed one, because I lost one earlier on [in Australia], so we knew it was going to be a tough day.”
However, things did not feel great on race day, with Hamilton going from looking very strong on Friday to having no balance on Sunday.
He passed the Haas cars in the closing stages to take 9th.
“Yeah, it was the worst balance I’ve ever had, one of the worst. I had so much front end and no rear, so hard to turn. It’s not the way you drive, I had to yank the steering to break the traction from the front and slide the front through every corner. It was the weirdest way to drive.
“I knew that we wouldn’t be able to overtake today. This is not one of those tracks, it’s difficult to follow in the middle sector. At least we closed towards the end.
“I don’t know why it feels so bad on the outside, but it happens from Saturday,” added the future Ferrari driver, thankful to end the day in the top ten.
There are some positives to take away, with a double points finish for the German team, a podium for Hamilton’s teammate, and feedback on reverting to the old floor.
“We’ve got data. Both cars finished. George got really good points today,” he concluded on an higher note.
