Hamilton's Car Appears 'Most Difficult' To Drive According To Brundle
F1Wednesday, 27 March 2024 at 19:30
Updated at Wednesday, 27 March 2024 at 19:42
Former F1 driver Martin Brundle, who had the opportunity to go trackside during the Australian Grand Prix weekend, suggested that Lewis Hamilton's car seemed the most difficult to drive.
Though there was a silver lining because his future team scored one-two, the Australian Grand Prix weekend has been very difficult for the seven-time World Champion.
He started the first practice session with a car that he said felt the best it had ever felt. Then, the good aspects disappeared during the FP2 session.
The seven-time World Champion called this session the worst in a long time. Then, going into the FP3 session, the W15 improved again, and it seemed he could match the pace of Ferrari and Red Bull.
Nevertheless, the performance disappeared once again in qualifying, and then, to top everything off, the 39-year-old retired from the Grand Prix just after 15 laps.
Observing cars from his trackside walk during the weekend, Martin Brundle suggested Hamilton's W15 looked the most difficult to drive. He wrote in his column for Sky Sports:
"When I was out on track on Friday, it appeared to me that Lewis Hamilton's Merc was perhaps the most difficult to drive."
"Through the high-speed chicane which makes up Turns One and Two, the car was all over the place."
Mercedes is struggling with the setup of their cars. The team principal, Toto Wolff, admitted their on-track data don't match their simulations, which is a significant problem because the team doesn't can't identify the core issue at the moment. Brundle continued:
"For the third consecutive season, they haven't hit the sweet spot with this era of ground-effect cars, and then can't seem to contain the unpredictability of performance thereafter."
Wolff admits there is an issue, but he always suggests he still believes in the potential of the car. Brundle suggested it must be "wearing very thin" for the 52-year-old, as he added:
"Team boss Toto Wolff always has elegant words and phrases to move the story on and refocus for the next race or season, but it must be wearing very thin for him to see the lack of progress."
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