Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton had one less practice session this weekend as he loaned his car to incoming 2025 driver Kimi Antonelli for FP1. The rookie had damaged the car’s floor during his run as he ran over some debris, an incident that he was blameless for.
Despite the car having slight improvements during FP3, the Brit struggled during all three sessions of qualifying.
He ended the session in P6, clocking a personal best of 1:16:651. The 39-year-old was 0.705s behind pole sitter Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, and 0.295s slower than teammate George Russell. This was unexpected as Hamilton was running the upgraded F1 W15 E Performance package, while his teammate drove the older version.
Hamilton said that the improvements he felt in FP3 gave him more confidence in his set-up resulting in a decision to not make any changes before qualifying.
“FP3 felt decent, it felt like we were on the right track. So I decided not to make any changes, all we did was put the wing on and I was like ok let’s leave it there.
“There’s not really a lot we could do in development, in set-up changes to progress the car forwards, the performance is where it is. Then we got into qualifying and it had no rear, it’s just like it flips on its head, it’s a very strange thing with a car.
“It’ll be interesting to get a reading, obviously I’m on the upgraded car, it should be quicker, but I don’t think it is.”
Towards the end of Friday’s session,none of Hamilton’s requests was for more rear. His feedback was definitely taken into account by the team as reflected by the car’s performance in FP3.
Ultimately, however, they are missing a lot of speed compared to Ferrari and McLaren in particular.
“Yeah we definitely took a good step in FP3, I thought at least in balance, but the actual car, we were still 6 tenths off the cars ahead. We put the bigger wing on to get more downforce and it just went slow.”
The Mercedes driver also revealed that his qualifying setup hasn’t changed since the start of the season
The seven-time World Champion doesn’t seem too optimistic about the race. In fact he doesn’t believe the Mercedes has any chance of beating the Red Bull, Ferrari or McLaren ahead.
However, he states that the team will be using the Grand Prix to collect data to improve the car for the remainder of the season.
“Yeah we’ll get lots of data tomorrow. I don’t think we’ll compete with the guys ahead, they’re just too fast, so we’ll see how it goes.
“I just want to go to the end of the race at least this time.”
When asked whether he had any answers to the confusion on the car’s unpredictable performance and how tricky it is to drive, Hamilton did not.
Alongside teammate Russell’s crashes in Austin and Mexico, the 105-time race winner had a big spin in FP1 through the esses, and ended up in the gravel early last Sunday.
“Not really, I mean we have three wheeling and the ride height is moving 15mm, something like that, up and down, and when it does that it shits the bed basically.”
