Mercedes F1 car improvements offer Hamilton “glimpse of hope”

May 23, 2022 World Sports

Lewis Hamilton believes Mercedes’ step forward with its Formula 1 car in Spain offers a “glimpse of hope”, but he is not giving thought to reviving his title hopes.

Mercedes brought a raft of updates for the W13 car to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix in the hope of easing the porpoising problem that has blighted Hamilton and teammate George Russell this year.

Mercedes showed signs of improving its relative pace to Red Bull and Ferrari through practice, and briefly led the timesheets in Q2 as its rivals opted to complete their first runs on used tyres.

Russell qualified fourth, beating Sergio Perez in the Red Bull, while Hamilton ended the session sixth, 0.762s off Charles Leclerc’s pole position time.

Although Hamilton noted after qualifying that he was “in the same position I was in the last race”, he was upbeat about the progress Mercedes had made to ease the porpoising problem.

“We don’t have the bouncing in a straight line, which is a huge, huge difference,” Hamilton said.

“But we still have some bouncing in like Turn 3 and Turn 9. So we still have some improvements to make, but the car’s a lot better.”