Lewis Hamilton had a challenging day during the Australian Grand Prix practice sessions while piloting his Mercedes. Team principal Toto Wolff openly admitted that Mercedes made significant miscalculations with experimental setup alterations on Hamilton’s car leading up to the event.
Hamilton’s day at Melbourne’s Albert Park in his W15 was far from ideal, with his performance resulting in a disappointing 18th place on the timesheet by the conclusion of the second practice session.
Part of the struggle stemmed from the seven-time F1 champion’s inability to capitalize on his opportunities with the soft tires.
Moreover, Hamilton encountered a setback late in FP2 when damage to the left-front cake tin, specifically the carbon-fiber brake shroud, necessitated a makeshift repair using duct tape.
However, the overarching issue appeared to be Mercedes’ endeavor to experiment with setup configurations in pursuit of untapped performance potential within the car.
In summary, Mercedes’ efforts to innovate and extract more performance from the vehicle did not yield the desired results, leading to a challenging day for Hamilton during the Australian Grand Prix practice sessions.
Wolff clarified “Well, we’ve achieved experiment but we haven’t unlocked performance.
“I think in the second session, we’ve gone through a quite dramatic setup change on Lewis, and that has massively backfired but this is why we’re having those sessions.
“On the other side [George Russell] it was a bit better, but we are lacking performance. On a single lap, if he finishes that lap we’re a bit better but overall, it wasn’t a good thing.”
Russell posted the sixth fastest time, trailing leader Charles Leclerc in his Ferrari by nearly seven-tenths of a second, while the Monégasque driver appeared at ease in his SF24.
With Mercedes’ lackluster performances in the initial two races held in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, discontent is resurfacing within the Mercedes camp as the team grapples with mastering the aerodynamic regulations implemented in 2022.
“If I would say that I’m not frustrated, it would not be the truth,” Wolff added. “Certainly we are [frustrated] because we’re trying so much in all directions, but we don’t seem to have found that silver bullet which helps get us in the right direction.
“We’ve got to keep trying. We’ve seen performance in this car before. I just don’t want to go back and say we’re just not good in these regulations because we have everything we need in order to get on top of that, and we will.”
