F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Hamilton 'much happier' at Zandvoort, but W13 still 'confusing'

Lewis Hamilton was encouraged by his P4 in qualifying at Zandvoort on Saturday, but the Briton is still at a loss to understand the performance swings of Mercedes' inconsistent W13.

Hamilton has felt in a better place since the start of the race weekend in Holland after Mercedes' massive underperformance last week in Belgium.

The seven-time world champion and teammate George Russell were in the mix in qualifying but a late yellow-flag triggered by Red Bull's Sergio Perez late in Q3 thwarted Hamilton final flyer which he believes could have landed him on the front row of Sunday's grid.

"Much happier coming into this weekend, to have a car that’s potentially fighting but I just don’t understand," he said after.

"One weekend it can be so far off and the next weekend all of a sudden we’re right there, so it’s confusing for sure.

"But lots of positives to take from today. And I think if we hadn’t had the yellow flag would have been hopefully, potentially fighting for the front rows. So that’s really positive.

"I hope that the deficit that we normally have, even though we close the deficit in a single lap, if that can then reflect our race pace, that’d be awesome."

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff revealed on Friday that the Brackley squad's engineers had gained at Spa a better understanding of their car and its wild performance swings.

Hamilton confirmed that the team now has more insight into the erratic behaviour of its wicked silver arrow.

"It has to do with aero curvatures and all sorts that I don’t know why we didn’t see it going into the last race because there were things we could have done differently and it could have been a little bit better at least," he said.

"Not two seconds quicker but why we are missing that. So we’re just looking at things of how we can make sure we’re better prepared from race to race.

"But just generally, this type of track, just putting the car on it, just works much better with the ride height and so."

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Michael Delaney

Recent Posts

Alpine double-podium in Brazil could deliver $30 million windfall

Alpine’s remarkable double podium at the São Paulo Grand Prix with Esteban Ocon and Pierre…

10 hours ago

F1i's Driver Ratings for the 2024 São Paulo GP

Alexander Albon, Williams (Did Not Start): 5.5/10 Alex Albon is definitely going through something of…

11 hours ago

Jos Verstappen rips British media after Brazilian Max fest

Jos Verstappen wasted no time after his son spectacular win at the São Paulo Grand…

13 hours ago

Leclerc left with ‘mixed feelings’ after disappointing Sao Paulo GP

Charles Leclerc's weekend in Sao Paulo was unfortunately a stark contrast to Ferrari's recent triumphs…

14 hours ago

Back when Kimi knew exactly what he was doing

Twelve years ago on this day, Kimi Raikkonen took a popular win at the 2012…

16 hours ago

Mercedes fined for starting grid tyre pressure infringement

The Mercedes team was hit with a fine by the FIA after Sunday’s Sao Paulo…

17 hours ago