Lewis Hamilton, the British driver for Mercedes AMG in Formula 1, had a disappointing practice session at the Australian Grand Prix. He blamed extensive set-up changes for his poor performance, calling it one of the worst sessions he has had in a long time. This comes after a lackluster start to his final season with Mercedes, finishing ninth in Saudi Arabia and seventh in Bahrain. Despite this, Hamilton insisted that the new Mercedes W15 car is not inferior to its predecessor. However, in the opening practice hour, Hamilton only managed to finish ninth, and in the subsequent session, he dropped to 18th place after abandoning two push efforts. Mercedes tried to address the issues by reverting to a previous floor design and making aggressive tweaks to Hamilton’s car, but these changes backfired and worsened his performance. Hamilton expressed his frustration, stating that he felt the least confident he has ever felt with this car. However, he acknowledged that there were some positives from the first practice run.
Meanwhile, George Russell, his teammate, had a promising performance on the other side of the Mercedes garage, coming within 0.033s of the fastest time in FP1. The British driver followed up with a sixth-place finish in the second hour and expressed optimism about the handling of his Mercedes W15 car. He mentioned that they had made some adjustments in Saudi and Bahrain and were still trying to further understand the car. Russell emphasized the value of every lap in learning more about the car and finding the optimal setup. He also mentioned that the team would be working on the simulator to extract more performance. However, he acknowledged that things could change overnight and the next day could bring different challenges.
Despite a mistake at Turn 12 that prevented him from replicating his third-place finish in FP1, Russell remained cautious about Mercedes’ prospects for the weekend. He mentioned that they were pushing the limits and had a few moments, but everything was under control. He also highlighted the competitiveness of the field, with 10 cars within a couple of tenths in the first session. In FP2, the gaps were slightly larger, and Russell believed he was on track for a strong lap before encountering a problem in the last two corners.
When asked about the potential of a cleaner run, Russell explained that on his last lap, he was two or three tenths faster, but he damaged his front wing coming out of Turn 12 and lost significant time in the last two corners. Despite this setback, he believed they could have been third in that session. Russell acknowledged that Mercedes usually performs well in FP1 and FP2 but highlighted the challenges of the C5 tire, which has a lot of potential but is difficult to optimize. He concluded by stating that there is still everything to play for and the race will be challenging due to the softer tire compounds chosen by Pirelli.
Russell commented on the race runs, noting that it was tricky for all the cars with a lot of graining. He mentioned that Melbourne usually feels like a qualifying race, but Pirelli’s tire selection has made things slightly different this year. He compared it to the previous week’s race and mentioned that Pirelli was more conservative then, but now they have opted for softer compounds. Russell anticipated that the softer tires would make the race more difficult and that it wouldn’t be as straightforward as a one-stop strategy as in previous years.