Lewis Hamilton fails to finish higher than ninth after engine change in Baku and complains about the Mercedes’ driving style: Team Principal Toto Wolff is sympathetic
Hard day at the office for Lewis Hamilton: After replacing various engine parts, the record world champion has to chase the field from the pits in Baku on Sunday. In the end, Hamilton finished in a hard-fought ninth place, as overtaking proved to be extremely difficult for the Mercedes star, especially in the DRS train on the long straights of the circuit on the Caspian Sea.
“I knew beforehand that it was going to be a tough day,” said Hamilton after crossing the finish line. “This race was the best race to do it in,” says the Briton, referring to the penalty due for the engine change and his already underwhelming seventh place on the grid in qualifying.
But 24 hours later, the Briton still has his doubts about his Saturday: “We had a great car on Friday and then made the smallest changes for Saturday. One of the components was not built correctly and that led us in the wrong direction on Saturday. But we only found that out at the end of the day. “
Wolff sympathizes: “It certainly wasn’t easy for him ”
In a way, the Silver Arrows make a virtue out of necessity, using the already messed-up weekend to feed new engine components into Hamilton’s pool, which he will ideally use until the end of the season – at the expense of the result in Baku, of course. “I knew we wouldn’t be able to overtake today,” says Hamilton, expressing his disappointment, adding: ”It’s one of those tracks.”
Chief engineer Andrew Shovlin specifies exactly what the Briton means by this: “Lewis’ race was difficult because he kept running into DRS trains and just couldn’t get past. The closer he got to the cars in front of him, the more his tires overheated,” explains the Briton. Team boss Toto Wolff therefore feels sorry for his protégé: “I think when you start 20th or from the pit lane, you know you’re going to go through a valley of tears the whole race,” said the Viennese on Sky.
“For the driver, of course, it’s terrible when you keep getting stuck and can’t get past and have much more speed,” says Wolff: “Then the tire was good once, bad once, good once, bad once. So, it certainly wasn’t easy for him.” But that’s the way it is on a track like Baku, where overtaking is difficult: “As soon as you get close, you attack the tires and then it goes backwards. ”
Hamilton shakes his head: “You just don’t drive like that ”
Hamilton, who also complained on the radio during the race about the driving style he had to adopt due to the special requirements, is certainly satisfied: “It was probably the worst balance I’ve ever had. Far too much on the front axle, nothing on the rear axle.”
The record-breaking champion explains: “You just don’t drive like that. I had to really yank on the wheel to break the traction on the front axle and slide through every corner. It was the strangest way to drive it.” By “it”, by the way, the Mercedes driver means “this thing”, as he also referred to his company car in frustration on the radio.
Seven races to go before the former love affair between Hamilton and his Silver Arrow comes to an end. With performances like the one on Sunday, the 39-year-old can hardly wait …
