No, Lewis Hamilton wasn’t satisfied with Friday’s free practice session in Hungary. The seven-time world champion says his Mercedes felt the worst it’s ever been in practice at the Hungaroring.
Hamilton finished the second practice session in Budapest in dry conditions as 16th (+1.060 seconds), his teammate George Russell only as last (+1.489), as both were only on one set of medium tyres.
Although Hamilton knew that the team drove a different program than everyone else, the feeling in his W14 was rather negative: “It didn’t feel good,” he says. “It felt like it was the worst car we had today.”
“But we’re going to work on the set-up tonight and hopefully that will change tomorrow, like last year when it felt awful at the beginning. We’re working on that tonight. Hopefully tomorrow will be better,” said Hamilton, who was 11th on Friday and seventh in qualifying in 2022, but shared the podium with Russell in the race.
Russell: Always bad on Fridays
Russell is a little more optimistic about Mercedes’ current situation, knowing his team often has difficult Fridays before steadily improving as the weekend progresses.
“To be honest, it didn’t feel that bad,” he says. “We obviously had a completely different program than everyone else because we only used one set of tyres. And those were used tires from the first practice session.”
“So the lap times aren’t really meaningful and I’m sure tomorrow will be better. But we remain focused on improving,” said the Briton, aware Mercedes never look strong on Friday.
“We always know that we improve as the weekend progresses and that’s a good thing,” he says. “We also learned some interesting things in this session, so let’s see what we can do tonight.”
The tires are still a problem
According to Russell, improvements must focus on better tire management, both during qualifying warm-up and during the race: “We’re having grip issues,” he notes. “I don’t think the tires are in the right window, either with low or high fuel consumption.”
That was also noticeable to Hamilton, who complained over the radio that he had no grip. His race engineer Peter Bonnington then had to get him back on track: “Lewis, this long run data is very useful. Others seem to have similar problems,” he said.
“We just have to find out why that is,” says Russell. “Whether we need to do a faster or slower outlap in qualifying, and whether we need to push harder or manage more in the race,” said Russell.
“Those things are sometimes a bit tricky when you’re in the cockpit without being able to look at the data to understand if the tires are on the cooler side or the hotter side and what exactly they need to be a little faster.”
“Like I said, it certainly wasn’t our best day. But it’s not the first time I’ve said that on a Friday night. And Saturday and Sunday are often better.”