Lewis Hamilton was unhappy with the Mercedes W15 at the Azerbaijan GP, highlighting tire issues as the reason behind his poor qualifying and race pace. However, he won’t let the dismal weekend affect his mind, as he looks forward to having better race weekends.
Both Hamilton and George Russell were not happy with how the Pirelli tires were responding on Sunday. Russell felt it worked differently for different cars, which he found frustrating. Meanwhile, Hamilton hinted at his team’s inability to get the tires working with the blankets — which are meant to increase its temperature and in turn, provide better grip.
However, he didn’t directly blame his crew. When Ted Kravitz asked him if he trusts his team to keep the temperature under control, Hamilton replied, “I do it every weekend so…all I can do is just you know I work as hard as I can, just going to stay positive. It’s not getting to my head.”
Sir Lewis Hamilton was asked for more details on the tyre temperature issues during qualifying :
Ted “Is it a blankets thing or them allowing you to work the way you want…”
Lewis “Its only tyres. ITS ONLY TYRES.”
Ted “The way they prepare them?”
Lewis “If you look at some… pic.twitter.com/0nqj6tu7mD
— sim (@sim3744) September 16, 2024
Hamilton changed his power-unit components after qualifying on Saturday, which led to a grid penalty. He started from the pit lane, and was hoping to make up enough places to get near the top three at the very least.
Unfortunately, Hamilton ended up finishing P9, scoring just two points for Mercedes. Russell, meanwhile, went on to finish P3, although it was mainly down to Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz’s crash, which ended their race. All in all, Mercedes’ pre-summer break form has not carried over since F1’s return in Zandvoort.
Toto Wolff took blame for Mercedes’ underperformance
Mercedes, after a rather weak start to the season, bounced back with three wins in four races leading up to the summer break. But post the three-week shutdown, cracks began reappearing.
In Baku for instance, neither driver was happy with the car, and Wolff took note of the same, shouldering the blame. “We, kind of, never gave the drivers a nicely balanced car…” he said after the race.
Hamilton — who leaves for Ferrari after seven more races with Mercedes — will be looking to end his Silver Arrows career on a high. But if the problems witnessed in Baku arise again for Hamilton and the Brackley-based squad in Singapore next week, the seven-time world champion could be in for another difficult weekend.
