Lewis Hamilton says he had to “yank” the steering wheel to overcome crippling balance issues with his Mercedes in Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Hamilton qualified seventh on Saturday after a difficult qualifying session, explaining Mercedes had found one of its car components was “not correctly built” and led him up the wrong set-up direction.
His lowly qualifying position prompted Mercedes’ decision to fit him with a new power unit for the race. Following a suspension set-up change, Hamilton started from the pitlane and managed to climb to ninth at the finish, but only after a late clash between Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz and a late move on Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg.
Despite the comeback, the seven-time world champion endured a frustrating afternoon in which he was seen fighting the Mercedes to get around the Baku street circuit’s tight 90-degree bends.
On the team radio Hamilton mentioned his unorthodox driving style, saying: “Do you see how I’m driving this thing?”
It was a reference to his huge handling issues, which appeared despite only making small car changes after a more positive Friday.
“It was probably the worst balance I have ever had,” Hamilton said. “I had so much front end and no rear.
“I had to yank the steering to break the traction at the front and slide it through every corner. It was the weirdest way to drive.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15
Photo by: Dom Romney / Motorsport Images
“I knew we would not be able to overtake today. It is one of those tracks. I don’t know why our pace was so bad from our side from Saturday.”
After losing an engine in Australia, Hamilton was due an engine penalty at some stage this season, and Mercedes chief Toto Wolff explains that the team decided to take it in Baku because it is even more difficult to pass in Singapore, and the team has high hopes for the following round in Austin.
“We decided to do the engine change here and we knew that it was going to be a race of misery, because it’s so difficult to overtake in Baku,” Wolff said.
“And that’s what it was. The moment you come closer, you overheat the tyres and then you go backwards.
“There were two different philosophies and we discussed it at length. You just swallow the pill here, because starting from P7 we didn’t know where that would have gone, or you do it in Austin. But we feel that Austin is an opportunity, so that was the decision. Right or wrong I don’t know. It was a close call.”
Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Mercedes is pinning its Austin hopes on a new floor it is planning to introduce, although its decision to revert to an older floor model in Azerbaijan hasn’t produced conclusive results just yet.
“The track is an outlier, but nevertheless, it’s not like this was night and day. We still suffered from the same balance performance that we had on the new floor. So in Singapore, we have the same one that’s going to shift over and we need to race that. But from Austin onwards, we’ll probably go to a new specification.”
Mercedes’ puzzling, knife-edge performance window was also highlighted by George Russell, who struggled in the first stint on mediums but delivered a much more competitive hard-tyre stint that saw him earn a podium.
“A difficult drive at the beginning, I think it’s tricky when you’re in a train and you’re fighting for position, but clearly our car is not good enough,” Wolff explained. “The balance was not good enough to be really able to keep up, and we suffered from that.
“And the second stint was truly amazing. Difficult at the beginning, but once the car found its balance because George drove it in the way it must be driven, then we were at times the quickest car.
He added: “As a matter of fact this is about who is getting the balance as good as possible, who is having the tyres in the right window and what kind of aero concept works well at a given track.”
