Lewis Hamilton pulled no punches when assessing his Mercedes machinery after an uncharacteristically poor sprint race at the Brazilian Grand Prix. The Brit described his car as ‘all over the place’, labelling his race ‘one of the worst of the year’.
Hamilton just missed the cut-off line for SQ3 in the sprint qualifying session on Friday, resigning him to a P11 grid slot for Saturday’s race. Unfortunately for the seven-time world champion, he got stacked up at the race start and dropped to as low as 14th on the road.
With slower cars ahead, the Mercedes driver got caught up in a DRS train with the Williams car of Alex Albon at the head. Hamilton made some progress and climbed to P11 after a late Nico Hulkenberg DNF, but was unable to rescue any points.
When Sky Sports F1 asked him about the race, he replied: “Probably one of the worst of the year. The car was all over the place. It was a real, real struggle. Our car does not like this track. At least we have some time now to make some changes going into qualifying. We definitely can’t make it worse.”
Mercedes have been struggling immensely with the bouncy nature of the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace this weekend with the repaved tarmac causing significant discomfort to Hamilton and team-mate George Russell in the cockpit.
With the W15 struggling so dramatically over the bumpy surface, Mercedes have been forced to raise the ride height of their car, which naturally sacrifices speed. Addressing the team’s struggles on Friday, Russell had some strong comments to offer.
“In 2022, in the porpoising era, without a doubt that was far more unpleasant, but because of the nature of those cars,” he said. “It was far harder to get close to the limit because you were jumping around every single corner, and you knew that it was going to bite you.
“The problem we’ve got with this car at the moment is you think it’s not going to bite you, and you can achieve a really great lap, and then suddenly, nothing changes — or you feel nothing change the following lap — and you lose all that performance.
“So without a doubt, this is probably the most inconsistent our performance has been as a team in probably forever.”
Russell managed to hold onto a P6 result during the sprint race but was unable to challenge the Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull drivers ahead, even for a handful of laps. Instead, he was forced to look behind him, fending off the threat of Pierre Gasly and Sergio Perez.
