Lewis Hamilton bemoaned the Mercedes W15 being “peaky” in Formula 1 qualifying in Miami as it went from being “the best the car had felt” in Q2 to “nowhere” in Q3.
Despite renewed optimism that it had eradicated the previous negative traits with a revised concept, Mercedes has endured its worst opening to a season since 2011.
The marque’s inconsistent showings continued in Miami as Hamilton went from being third in the second stage, one-tenth off the pace, to eighth in the final segment.
“It was decent, it was a better qualifying session I think,” Hamilton reflected. “Q2 felt really good.
“But Q2 was the best the car had felt, and then it just felt nowhere in Q3. We’re just working in a really minuscule window of tyre performance.”
But Hamilton is convinced Mercedes’ unsuccessful bid to extract consistent performance derives from a slim working range rooted in the behaviour of the Pirelli tyres.
“I think it’s this tyre,” he claimed when told other drivers had concurred with his comments. “In all my career, I don’t remember having such a small window.”
While he concedes that the aero configuration on the car is not an optimal level, the Briton is adamant that the Pirelli rubber is contributing to its eight-tenth margin.
“This is the thing, you look at Q2, I’m a tenth and a half off, suddenly I’m like what the hell, I’m not far off the Red Bull,” he continued.
“And I definitely think the car is peaky, we definitely have problems with the car, we do know the aero balance is not where we want it to be.
“But I think, massive chunk of it is just these tyres.
Hamilton admits that the unpredictable experience across the compounds from session to session is the “most frustrating” thing and a negative with the current cars.
“You look back in the day where you had a much bigger working window to work with, so then you can just optimize the balance and then have good grip through the whole lap.
“I don’t know. It’s definitely… it’s definitely my least favourite.”
Despite proclaiming that his car remains on a “knife-edge through the corners”, Hamilton has avoided making the same drastic tweaks to his set-up as he did in China.
However, he suspects that being able to challenge the McLaren and Ferrari cars ahead will be a stretch for him and team-mate George Russell, who will start seventh.
“I think we maximized set-up, the car was good with great balance,” he added.
“I don’t know if we’re the same pace as the guys ahead, but we’ll wait and see. But we’re a little bit further up, hopefully we can try and attack and see what we get.”
