Although the Mercedes team looked contender for a better starting position after the Friday sessions, Lewis Hamilton qualified P7 for the 2024 Formula One Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
When asked about this discrepancy between the Friday sessions and Saturday’s results, Hamilton said, “Yeah, I mean, every Saturday is the same, so I’m not really surprised.”
The Mercedes duo struggled to find the correct tyre temperature for the Qualifying session, as teammate George Russell only qualified P5.
Hamilton goes in detail expanding on how the car felt throughout the weekend.
“P1 and P2 car felt amazing, and I was really on it, literally, from lap one. In the front, sometimes you wonder when you get to a Saturday whether the others were heavier. P1 and P2, but as I said, it felt great yesterday.
“And then as soon as we started today, I barely changed anything on the car because I didn’t want to mess anything up. And the tyres would work all day if not worse. I think the last lap, the last sector, the tyres just started to work.
“We missed it.”
Mercedes also went back on their upgrade package, fitting the car with an older iteration of the floor. When asked about how the car felt after this change, Hamilton stated that the older floor is a good one.
“I think they’re very, very similar between the new one and the old one. So I think it was a good test for us to go back.
“We won on this floor before. It’s a bit older, so it’s a little bit heavier. It’s a little bit like a new floor, but I think it’s a good floor.”
When asked whether it made much of a difference, the Mercedes driver reiterated that both the old and new floor felt similar. However, they’re at the same place as they were in the 2024 Formula One Italian GP.
“No, it’s not easy to really… We haven’t backed back to it this weekend, so it’s difficult to say whether that was the problem, because we’re in the same position we were in the last race.
“As I said, there’s not a big difference between the two. But the car was feeling great yesterday.
“It wasn’t today. Yeah, hopefully tomorrow is better.”
The British driver was also asked about the performance of the rookies this weekend, Colapinto and Bearman. Franco Colapinto made it to Q3, while Bearman just missed out.
Hamilton said that getting the tyres in the right window made a huge difference to the end performance.
“Yeah, I think if you look at the Williams, you’ll see tyres are everything here if you get them working.
“For them to be up as high as they were today, they were clearly getting the tyres in the sweet spot, which others were nor.“
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix will be a race of tyre management, to which Hamilton said:
“We’ve not been good the last couple of years, or at least the last year with rear deg. We will try to be better tomorrow, for sure.
“I hope we’re stronger, and we’ll find out at the beginning of the race.“
On Sunday morning, it was confirmed Hamilton would be taking multiple new engine components. The Brit retired from the Australian Grand Prix earlier in the year and lost an engine, meaning a grid penalty was inevitable.
