Lewis Hamilton described the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as “terrifying” and sees no short-term solution to the “painful” struggle at Ferrari this season.
The sprint victory in China suggested that Hamilton began to hold onto his new machine 12 years later at Mercedes, followed by the results of the seventh, fifth and seventh Grand Prix in the past three races. Following optimism in Bahrain, he clicked on the car during one stint, making the entire weekend in Jeddah difficult, and Hamilton was downbeat after falling behind teammate Charles Leclair.
“It’s nothing positive except that Charles finished on the podium, which is great for the team,” Hamilton said.
“It was horrifying. It was absolutely fun. I was just sliding down. The first stint, the massive understeer, the car wasn’t turned, then the massive deg, and the second stint, there was a slightly better balance, but still there was no pace. It was pretty bad.
“I had a lack of grip so it was well balanced. I was fighting the car all the way through, but nothing went well.”
After five races in six weeks, the next race in Miami will be a standalone event on May 4th, but Hamilton does not expect to find an important solution to the difficulties of the time.
“He’s definitely known that because he’s been driving this car for a long time. There’s certainly a lot in the data. Honestly, it’s not that different in the data.
“I think I’ll be struggling with this in Miami. I don’t know how long I’ve been struggling, but it’s definitely painful… There’s no correction at this point. This is for the rest of the year.
“I don’t expect, but we have a slightly different setup. We have to see and see if that setup is the way we like setting up a car. He and his side are definitely doing it well.”
Hamilton also described the era of ground-effectiveness of cars introduced in 2022 as “the worst” given the difficulties he faces, but acknowledges that it’s not just a time to look at cars for answers.
“No, it’s not. By qualifying, I extract performance. In the race, I literally tried everything, but the car didn’t want to be faster.”