Hamilton labels Montreal practice 'a disaster' for Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton wasn't pulling his punches when he was asked how Friday's practice at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve had gone for Mercedes.

In the first session for this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix, Hamilton had been tasked with trying out an experimental new floor design featuring a large cut in it intended to tackle the W13's chronic problem with porpoising.

He finished in eighth place in FP1 before reverting to the usual set-up for the later session - which saw him drop to 13th, almost 1.3s behind the top time set by Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

• Read also: Verstappen just pips Leclerc in second Montreal practice

Asked for his verdict on how it had gone, Hamilton replied: “Pretty much like every Friday for us. Trying lots of different things, an experimental floor on my side which didn't work.

“Nothing we do generally to this car seems to work so we're trying different set-ups," he said, confirming that his team mate George Russell had been working on alternate approaches.

"Me and George went with much different set-ups in this FP2 just to see if one way works and one way doesn't. I'll wait to hear how it felt for him, but for me it was a disaster.

“It's like the car's getting worse," he continued, sounding increasingly exasperated and dejected. "It's getting more and more unhappy the more we do to it.

"I don't know. We'll keep working on it. It is what it is. I think this is the car for the year, so we'll just have to tough it out and work hard on building a better car for next year.

"We’re going to get this fixed by the end of next year at least," he insisted. “So hopefully that’s not going to be something to stop me racing for longer. But time will tell.”

The Canadian Grand Prix is usually one of Hamilton's favourite events of the year, and a track he loves, but he said that the problems with this year's Mercedes meant it didn't feel the same this year.

“It's not the Montreal that I know, that I'm used to and that I've experienced in my career,” said Hamilton, who won his first career pole position here in 2007 before going on to win the race as well, a sixth victory in his rookie season.

“It's the worse that I've ever felt any car here," he explained. “It's just a monumental fight the whole time to keep it out of the wall.

"One touch of the kerbs here and the car goes flying. It's so stiff, and here in Montreal you really need to ride the kerbs.

“When it bounces, when the car leaves the ground a lot, and then when it lands it grips up and it goes in different directions, and you're just trying to catch a car that jumps, hops, grips, hops, grips.

"It's tough," he said. "It keeps you on edge. And there were some big hits today - we've raised the car, but it doesn't make a difference.

“We've tried loads and loads of things. We've ticked them all of,” he summarised. “Those ones don't work, so we have to go and find something else. We're way off, but it's to be expected with this car.”

"I'm hoping overnight we can try and make some changes, but fundamentally it's just the fundamentals of the car. It is what it is. It's going to be a struggle," he admitted.

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