F1 | Hamilton disappointed: “Wrong setup due to my requests”

There is little to save at Mercedes at the end of the Chinese Grand Prix, which once again saw the Brackley team finish behind McLaren and Ferrari, with the prospect of also finishing behind Aston Martin if Alonso had not been forced for strategic reasons to make an extra pit stop.

If George Russell managed to bring home sixth place, honestly described as the best that Mercedes could aspire to, for Lewis Hamilton it was an up-and-down Grand Prix, especially on Saturday. After second place in the sprint race, although born from some favorable situations, a few hours later the situation was reversed, given that in qualifying the Briton was not even able to overcome the Q1 trap.

A difficult result to digest, but which also finds its roots in some set-up changes desired by the Brit between the end of the sprint race and the beginning of qualifying, in that short period of time in which, starting from this year , the teams can intervene on the setup again.

Many teams took advantage of this to make changes to the cars which later proved to be fundamental for the race, while others seem to have taken a step back. Among those drivers who pushed for changes was Lewis Hamilton, whose requests however sent the car in the wrong direction, further reducing the operational window.

“Ultimately, on Saturday I made a change to the car's set-up which didn't work and I paid the consequences. I intend to make sure I don't do it in the future”, explained the British driver, who also spoke via radio at the end of the race. is assumed responsibility for the choice made, given that it came from his indications.

One of the big problems was the lack of front in the first part of the race, which turned into evident and annoying understeer, so much so that it led him to think that there was some broken element on the car. It is no mystery that over the last few years Mercedes has suffered from a lack of load on the rear, an aspect that was highlighted during the last season and at the beginning of this world championship, in particular in the medium-high speed corners where a lot of contribution and stability is needed.

The choice to try to rebalance the car, however, had the opposite effect: “At first I thought I had rear-ended someone because I have never had so much understeer in my life. I thought I had damaged something, like others, because at one point there was debris everywhere, but it was just the setup I had chosen.”

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15, Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-24

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“With better setup decisions, maybe we would be around where George is [Russell, che ha concluso sesto], but we just have to keep fighting. I went ahead and got into the points, but it was a difficult race,” added the seven-time world champion.

“The car seems to work in a small window and I thought those changes were the right thing to do. Unfortunately, today was very difficult. The team still did a great job with the pit stops and George [Russell] he did well in scoring important points for the team.”

“Hopefully we can make some progress in the next race. Until then, we'll be back at the factory next week to try to better position the car for Miami and hopefully have a better weekend.”

Hamilton was one of the few to use the soft in the race, especially at the start, with the idea of ​​exploiting an aggressive first part of the race as other drivers had done in Japan, and then going for the two stops. However, the attempt didn't work, leaving him stuck in the group at the bottom of the standings. Andrew Shovlin explained more about the problems suffered by the Briton and also how these negatively affected his race.

Sparks kick up from the rear of Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“Lewis' race wasn't easy because he didn't gain much at the start on the soft tyre. Then he got stuck in a traffic jam inside the second corner and lost ground to the cars on the outer line .

“We had made some changes to his car after the sprint and they clearly didn't improve the car. This made qualifying and the race difficult. He had difficulty turning the car and had to use power to turn it, which clearly hurt the rear tyres”.

“We decided to pit him under the Virtual Safety Car, but most of our rivals did the same once the Safety Car came in. We benefited from a couple of cars retiring in front of us but, considering the early part of the game, it was a relief to get some points.”