Hamilton downbeat after Jeddah tyre struggles: ‘Not the greatest’

Lewis Hamilton faced a challenging Friday at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, finishing a disappointing 13th in Free Practice 2 as he grappled with getting Ferrari’s soft tyres to perform.

While his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc concluded the day a promising fourth, Hamilton was over a second off the pace, forcing the Briton to downgrade his ambitions to simply reaching the top ten for the remainder of the weekend.

The seven-time world champion’s difficulties were particularly evident on the soft tyre runs in FP2, where he failed to extract the expected pace from his SF-25.

While a lack of clean laps in FP2 exaggerated his position on the timesheets, Hamilton was visibly off the pace in both Friday sessions, highlighting a recurring challenge in adapting to Ferrari’s machinery.

Soft Tyre Woes and Setup Struggles

"I'm just trying to see if I'm getting the top ten at the moment," a downbeat Hamilton lamented after FP2. “Not the greatest. I think getting the tyres working today was the issue from our side.

“It’s nothing to do with the team, it’s just we were struggling to get the tyres working.”

Despite the opportunity to refine the car’s setup ahead of FP3 and qualifying, Hamilton remained cautious about any major turnaround.

“Normally on Saturday it goes backwards, but there’s not a lot of backwards for me to go from where I am. Hopefully, overnight we will make some improvements to the car.

“There were a few bits through the session that felt good and just once we get to the soft tyre, it’s not there.

“We’ll make some changes overnight and hope tomorrow we can come back stronger.”

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As has been Ferrari's approach throughout the season, Hamilton and Leclerc trialled divergent setup paths on Friday to broaden the team’s data set. Hamilton hinted that a shift towards his teammate’s configuration could be on the cards for Saturday.

"Possibly," he said when asked about aligning his setup with Leclerc’s. "We'll work together tonight to see, because through both sessions we were trying different things across both cars to then converge; wing settings and all sorts.

"So, I'm hoping we'll have a better understanding after we analyse tonight, and hoping for a better day."

Leclerc Sees Positives Despite Challenging Day

While Hamilton appeared downcast, Leclerc remained measured yet optimistic about Ferrari’s prospects in Jeddah, having ended the day just 0.482s behind session leader Lando Norris.

“It was ok. It was a tricky day,” Leclerc said. “Obviously, it’s a very challenging track where confidence needs to be very high in order to perform at your best.

“We changed a lot on the car, but it was a very positive day because I have learned a lot from it and I think once we put everything in the right window, there should be a bit more performance coming out of the car.

“But McLaren seems to be very strong once again, a lot stronger than us, but never say never. If we put everything together, anything is possible.”

Ferrari will hope to unlock more pace from both cars ahead of qualifying on Saturday, but for Hamilton, expectations remain tempered as he seeks to reverse a difficult start to life in red.

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