Sixth place less than two seconds behind Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari. Lewis Hamilton has tried to look at the Azerbaijan GP with positivity after a weekend which, on the whole, proved to be quite difficult. In Saturday’s Sprint, the Englishman had shown some difficulty in keeping up with his rivals, revealing that the car had shown better behavior over the flying lap.
For this reason, the expectations in view of the race weren’t that exciting, given the impossibility of intervening in an important way on the set-up. Despite the 45 seconds charged by Red Bull and the 24 seconds collected by Charles Leclerc, the British champion still tried to see the glass half full, finding the positive aspects in a day lacking in satisfactions.
After a good start, the Englishman began to suffer from tire graining, with the risk of becoming easy prey for Fernando Alonso behind him. This is why Mercedes decided to bring up the pit stop, even if this led him to lose several positions when the Safety Car came on not even two laps later.
“It wasn’t ideal, the Safety Car came in, I couldn’t let myself get frustrated with losing those positions, I just tried to focus on what I could control, on attacking and that’s what I did,” he said. told Hamilton.
Slipped to tenth place, the standard bearer of the Brackley team began his comeback, until he reached sixth position behind Carlos Sainz, never really in the thick of the action this weekend. Being able to count on higher top speeds, the Spaniard was able to keep the seven-time world champion behind him, disturbed above all in the central sector by the dirty air coming from the SF-23 number 55.
Net of the failure to overtake, Hamilton still considered it positive to duel with other drivers, an aspect that demonstrates his desire to continue racing at the top of the category.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W14
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
“I enjoyed dueling today which helped, I am proud of my team for continuing to work. We didn’t have the pace we had in the last race, but this team is very hungry and willing to progress, we are continuing to work on updates and this is the start of something better.”
“They (Ferrari) were a little bit faster on the straights, even when we had the DRS open they were very fast and following in the central sector wasn’t easy. I gave everything.”
Hamilton is confident that once the updates arrive, confidence in the car will continue to progress, resulting in improved pace as well.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W14
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
“There is a lot of work behind this weekend. Yesterday was a difficult day, today I was hoping for something better, but I lost a lot of positions (behind the Safety Car), but I thought that was what it was and went on the attack. I hope today shows that the hunger is there and as soon as I find that confidence in the car, the pace will come”.
“The car is really difficult to drive this year. I had decent pace today, this shows that we are on the right direction and once we have the updates we will be in a much better position.
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