“Doesn’t Like It”: Lewis Hamilton Dances a Delicate Dance to His Car’s Demands for Performance

In Monaco, a dejected Lewis Hamilton declared that he wouldn’t finish ahead of George Russell in qualifying for the rest of 2024. However, just a couple of races later, Hamilton has done just that. He finished P3 in Spain’s Qualifying, one place ahead of Russell, and revealed the fine-tuning of his car.

The area Hamilton struggles with is, pushing the tires of the W15 to the limit. “Just as you start to push the car, it doesn’t like it. So in practice, when you leave a little bit of margin, the car feels quite nice. But it’s when you start to really lean on it to try and get that extra bit of lap time out where we really struggle.” 

#SpanishGP | Lewis Hamilton asked about what made the difference this time around seeing that in previous events he’d lose performance going into qualifying:

“I still feel like I lost [a little bit of] performance going into [qualifying]. It’s all about perspective. Maybe…

— deni (@fiagirly) June 22, 2024

Hamilton faced similar issues at the Canadian GP two weeks ago, when he was topping the charts in practice, but lost his mojo when it mattered more. The drop in performance during Qualifying combined with Hamilton conceding defeat to Russell gave rise to claims that Mercedes was sabotaging the seven-time World Champion.

Mercedes’ Technical Director James Allison was the first to reveal that Hamilton was struggling behind Russell because of the Pirelli tires.

Allison explained how the Pirelli rubber, when pushed to the absolute limit, doesn’t give the best performance or feel. He suggested that Hamilton’s pushing to the absolute limit hindered Qualifying for the Stevenage-born driver. Perhaps, this was the reason why Russell was 8-1 in the qualifying battle with Hamilton coming into the Spanish GP.

Despite getting clarity regarding the Pirelli rubber being one of the reasons behind Hamilton’s struggles, there remains another factor. 

Lewis Hamilton continues to Struggle with Tire Temperature 

After the Qualifying session in Canada, Hamilton, who finished P7 was absolutely livid. He spoke about issues with his tire temperatures and how it caused the blunder. He stated that the tires were a few degrees off their optimal temperature, shifting the blame onto a possible issue with tire blankets.

In Spain this weekend, Hamilton had a good Qualifying (P3), but that doesn’t mean that his issues were fixed.

“So you saw in Practice 1, I was seven-tenths down due to an issue with the blankets. And then we got it sorted for the following sessions. So, it puts you a little bit on the back foot”, said Hamilton. 

This puts pressure on Mercedes once again. The Brackley-based outfit is taking legal action against the anonymous account that spread claims of a ‘systematic sabotage’ against Hamilton. But if the 39-year-old continues to point out flaws publicly, Mercedes could find it difficult to brush these allegations under the carpet.