In the latest qualifying session for the Miami Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton and his teammate George Russell from the Mercedes team ended up in seventh and eighth place on the grid, which was disappointing for them. Russell believes that the team has realized how much they’re lagging behind in terms of speed. He thinks that some of the problems they’re facing now are because they tried too hard to fix problems from the past.
Russell explained to Sky that they might have gone too far in trying to solve the issues they had last year. He said, “We have limitations with the car now, which are a totally different limitation to what we had this time 12 months ago.” This means that the changes they made to the car to fix last year’s problems might have caused new problems this year. Now, they need to figure out how to improve quickly.
Russell is confident that Mercedes understands what they did wrong with their car for the 2024 season. However, it takes time to make and test new parts for the car. He explained that it takes about eight weeks to bring upgrades to the car after identifying a problem, and by then, they’re already a few races into the season.
Hamilton added that Mercedes is struggling to figure out how to get the best performance out of the current tires. Sometimes, they can be quick in one session but struggle in the next. He said, “Trying to get the tires to work and to deliver the maximum potential throughout the whole lap is something that I would say that we are struggling with.”
Hamilton feels that understanding the tires better could help them improve their performance. He mentioned that in the qualifying session, they were eight tenths off the pace, which is quite a lot. He believes that figuring out how to use the tires properly could make a big difference for their team.
