Lewis Hamilton made a long-awaited return to the podium with a P3 finish at last week’s Spanish Grand Prix, sparking hopes of a Mercedes resurgence after a slow start to the season.
Speaking on Thursday ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, Hamilton admitted that the W15 has proven tricky to set up in a way that allows the drivers to extract maximum performance out of the car.
“I think the car, aerodynamically, is more on a knife edge,” Hamilton said. “It’s not as easy to balance with the mechanical side and the aero balance from high to low speed—getting that configuration is difficult.”
He also identified tyre preparation as a key factor influencing performance.
“But tyre temperature and also then how you do your outlaps is key, which every single team is trying… You look at the Ferraris in Montreal, who didn’t get out of Q2 for example. That could only be tyre temperature, because they’ve got a quick car, they won the race before that.
“So it just shows that it’s easy to not have the tyres working, it’s easy to overwork the tyres,” he continued. “They’re definitely more sensitive, I think, than any other season that I remember being in.”
Hamilton acknowledged that the capricious nature of the W15 could pose challenges, given the limited practice time under the Sprint format this weekend—although he’s open to being pleasantly surprised, as the car performed well from the get go in Canada.
“Our car’s generally not been quick out of the box, it’s something we always have to tune and work on. [In] Montreal it was quick out of the box, but that may have been a one off, we’ll see tomorrow.”
However, he added that he relishes the challenge: “But I like the Sprint weekends, because it doesn’t give you a lot of time to adjust.”
