Even though Mercedes dominated Friday practice running for the Italian Grand Prix Lewis Hamilton insisted that his upgraded power unit felt “the same” as before.
Despite he and his team-mate Nico Rosberg being far ahead of the rest at this ultimate power track of Monza, and that Mercedes had used all of its remaining seven development tokens for the season for the unit introduced here, Hamilton doesn’t believe it’s resulted in much difference behind the wheel.
When asked in what ways it felt different he replied: “It doesn’t, it just feels the same. It’s more reliability changes. They did it to improve reliability because we’ve got a long way to go in the season. The engine feels fantastic because it is a fantastic engine.”
He did accept however that this weekend looks like a two horse race between him and Rosberg for first place.
“It always makes it easier when there are less people around,” he noted. “But it’s still very intense out there, we’re working as hard as we can all the time. It still makes it a challenge.”
Hamilton was though quietly content with his Friday in which he topped both sessions, adding: “It’s been a good day, a testing day and lots of things to try…just balance stuff, the car’s been feeling good so far this weekend. Just keep it together,” he said.
