Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher are the two most successful drivers in Formula 1 but there are certain qualities that the Briton lacks.
Despite having equalled or broken several of Michael Schumacher’s records, Hamilton still lacks a few qualities claims an old Mercedes engineer.
Hamilton and Schumacher equally share 14 world titles between them along with almost 200 race wins and dozens of other records.
Like any other driver, Schumacher too had some difficult times on the track. Currently, Hamilton is at that stage of his career. He is facing difficulties with the W13 due to which he is getting constantly outperformed by his teammate George Russell.
As he is 75 adrift of the championship leader Max Verstappen, a former Mercedes engineer thinks that Hamilton’s lack of technical knowledge is a contributing factor.
“Lewis needs to have confidence in the car, which is very important to him,” said Philipp Brandle, who worked with Hamilton as an aerodynamicist at Mercedes for six years. “He’s not like [Michael] Schumacher and doesn’t have the technical background. But he can feel the car particularly well.”
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Lewis Hamilton is having a tough time
A good performance at the Spanish GP ignited hopes of improvement in the W13 but the last outing at the Monaco GP gave the impression that it had been a false conception. “The Monaco GP showed the true weaknesses of the car,” said Mercedes’ trackside engineer Andrew Shovlin.
“It’s been a frustrating weekend for the team and drivers. We weren’t anywhere near quick enough on one lap but even in the race, we didn’t have enough pace.”
You ask, we answer 💪 Shov talks through the key topics from the #MonacoGP in our Akkodis Race Debrief! 👀
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) June 1, 2022
“George did a good job to take P5 from Lando on the dry transition and also to hold him behind at the end of the race – luckily, he was only there for one lap.”
“Lewis had a tough time sandwiched between the Alpines for most of the race – we just couldn’t find a way of putting him in free air without him needing to overtake which is near impossible.”
“It also seemed that the cold conditions were making life quite difficult for the tyres and both our cars dropped off towards the end of the race. We’ve clearly got work to do ahead of Baku as there are a lot of similarities between the cornering sections and this track has highlighted our weaknesses,” Shovlin concluded.
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