Lewis Hamilton has discovered it tougher to carry out at his greatest in qualifying since Formulation 1 launched the present technical laws, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director believes.
The seven-times world champion holds the report for many pole positions with 104. However he has solely set one since F1 launched its present era of technical laws in 2022.
He has trailed crew mate George Russell in qualifying thus far this 12 months. Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin stated that is partly as a result of the present era of automobiles, with their highly effective floor impact aerodynamics, doesn’t swimsuit his fashion in addition to these used till 2021.
“George has at all times set a really excessive bar in qualifying,” stated Shovlin. “As quickly as he was in F1, he was impressing. Even within the Williams, he was doing a little fairly spectacular qualifying periods. So we all know that he’s very fast.
“Lewis hasn’t disguised the truth that Saturdays had been his robust day. He’s struggled with this entire era of automotive, actually, not suiting his fashion. He’s been engaged on how he drives.”
Having gained eight consecutive constructors’ championship previous to 2022, Mercedes have spent a lot of the final two-and-a-half years not on the tempo of the front-running groups, which has added to their issues.
“We had an enormous quantity of labor making an attempt to get the automotive to be faster – it simply hasn’t been fast sufficient – but in addition with a dealing with stability that the drivers can truly assault the lap on Saturday.
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“We’ve made progress. Lately, George has outqualified Lewis by some pretty nice margins. So it’s nice for the crew that Lewis is again up there and he’ll be pushing on. However we’ll preserve engaged on that and I’m positive that we’ll see hopefully some extra Lewis pole positions as effectively.”
Hamilton ended a two-and-a-half 12 months victory drought within the final race. Shovlin says his race tempo stays a energy, however his attacking fashion in qualifying has tended to overheat the rear tyres.
“It’s significantly [that] he struggled on the one lap,” Shovlin defined. “So his long term tempo is at all times there and that’s been actually helpful.
“It’s extra simply the best way that he desires to assault a nook, while you try this, then the automotive would snap to oversteer. You begin to construct tyre temperature.
“So most of our work has been making an attempt to provide him a automotive that you could drive the very attacking fashion, extract the lap outing of it with out it simply kind of breaking away on the best way in and catching him without warning.”
Hamilton and Russell’s qualifying and race performances in contrast
2022
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2023
2024 – first 12 rounds
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