“The rear doesn’t feel too great with this new regulation change”- Lewis Hamilton on Mercedes W12

“The rear doesn’t feel too great with this new regulation change”- Lewis Hamilton talks about his struggles with the new Mercedes.

Lewis Hamilton made his Mercedes roar for the first time on Friday- on the first day of the Bahrain test. On Saturday, he opened for Mercedes, dawning aero rakes behind his front tyres.

While he was driving, he got spun into the gravel, and the session had to be stopped. After a rough day, Hamilton had a few complaints but believes that they will be taken care of.

“The wind has done a 180,” Hamilton explained. “The track is a lot different today in places, some places you can push where you couldn’t push yesterday, and it’s very gusty as I found out into turn 13.

“So the rear doesn’t feel too great with this new regulation change. But we’re trying to find the sweet spot.”

No point to worry about less testing mileage

Hamilton and his teammate Valtteri Bottas both had to be out of the track for a major part of their respective sessions at least once, causing a significant loss in the test mileage, but Hamilton isn’t worried at all.

“I’ve done 60 laps, something like that, so it’s not a lot compared to other test days we would normally have. But we’re trying to be as efficient as we can be. We have less mileage than some of the others like the Red Bulls so far.”

“But we’re just trying to stick to our programme and manage the number of laps we also have and try to be as efficient as we can.” Asked whether Mercedes were close to being worried about their testing form.

Hamilton said: “It’s day two of testing, so we’re just focusing on doing our job. So nowhere near at the moment, we’re just focusing on trying to understand our car. There’s no point in getting worried just yet.”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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