Mercedes is adamant that claims Lewis Hamilton’s ongoing one-lap struggles in Formula 1 are down to him having unequal treatment are both “not true and not fair”.
Although Hamilton has appeared in competitive shape in practice on several occasions this season, the speed has seemed to desert him when it has mattered most.
The Briton was positioned in the top three places across all the practice hours in Monaco, but he qualified down in seventh as team-mate George Russell pipped him.
Hamilton’s unexplained slump prompted him to express that he didn’t “anticipate” beating his team-mate under low-fuel conditions for the remainder of the campaign.
The rumblings that something was amiss in Hamilton’s garage gathered momentum in Canada as he slipped from top in FP3 to seventh as Russell took pole position.
However, Mercedes Technical Director James Allison has asserted that it would be ludicrous to suggest the side harbours intentions to hamper Hamilton’s prospects.
“I think if you just look at the stats, 8-1, 7-1 back then, maybe it would be reasonable to think if that trend continues, there won’t be many times when he’ll be on pole,” Allison told F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast.
“I think that if you try and read into that stuff that isn’t there, like somehow he’s got a systematic disadvantage on qualifying day, that’s not true and not fair.
“So far as we can make it, the cars are identical.
The engine use is identical. If the cars are different on setup, it’s because that’s what the driving engineering team on either side of the garage have iterated to.
“But they have the chance to have identical stuff if they chose. On one occasion this year and famously in Monaco, they had a different front wing on the car because we only had one available and we took the decision that we would get that wing on the car as soon as we could, and it had to go to one or the other.
“We had the conversation and Lewis said ‘no, I’ll let George have it’.”
Allison thinks Hamilton’s failure to replicate encouraging practice pace in qualifying comes down to his driving approach not being compatible with the current tyres.
The British engineer also believes that the German outfit’s recent improvement will create a more meaningful intra-team comparison compared to the earlier rounds.
“I wouldn’t have predicted 8-1,” Allison admitted. “And I think that for a chunk of the year, the car has been a pretty troubled beast.
“It’s become a much, much better car in the last two or three races and, with that, I think the judgments about who may or may not put it in front of the other car become more meaningful, because the car is less of a random number generator.
“Lewis has, not by accident, been the best qualifier in the history of the sport, because I think he’s been the best driver in the sport, but he’s struggling to make it stick this year by fine margins, as you say.
“I think, to a degree, I was speculating this in an email I sent to the factory yesterday that the current car-tyre combo, not just us, across the pit lane, it doesn’t like being hustled – you almost get the best lap times when you’re not trying.
“And you see every weekend, you’ll see someone pop a lap time in free practice or in qualifying, in some session or other, you’ll see some car and you think, ‘how did that get there?’ And then they don’t do it again, it sort of disappears in the mist straight after.
“I think in qualifying it’s quite hard, where you’re all pumped up and you’re wanting to get the best from it, to do a lap that is sort of relaxed enough to get the best out of the car.”
Nevertheless, Allison has commended the performances Russell has put in on a consistent basis this season to extract the maximum from the W15 over a single lap.
“I think he’s very, very consistent at getting the car at its best in qualifying trim – he’s really good at that,” Allison added.
“I think it’s much more even in the race and Lewis’ race pace has been very strong relative to George on a number of occasions this year.
“But in qualifying, George has definitely had the better of it.”
