RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Lewis Hamilton felt much better in the car in the F1 Dutch Grand Prix qualifying, but confidence dented on Friday with tyres being the main culprit, as he struggled to work it and locked-up at Turn 1.
After a low-key return in both F1 Dutch GP sprint qualifying and also the race due to wrong set-up choice , Ferrari’s Hamilton found something in the main qualifying but could only manage fifth in the end, behind both the McLaren and Mercedes pair.
He managed to beat teammate Charles Leclerc, but his confidence was dented on Friday itself, not giving him enough time to adjust to changes post-sprint as much. He is hopeful still of a better result, as he feels the race pace will be better than the one-lap pace was.
Hamilton felt much better in Dutch GP qualifying but confidence dented
“Yeah, much, much happier with the car in quali, thankfully,” said Hamilton to media after F1 Dutch GP qualifying. “But it’s not that helpful when it comes to building confidence, it’s like you’re putting brick by brick, you’re putting down building a wall, knock down that confidence that I had in FP1, didn’t have it through sprint qualifying, and then I just basically was starting again building.
“But the car was much better and much happier with it. I’m excited for tomorrow.” It was not easy especially in Q3 with the threat of rain. The Ferrari F1 cars were struggling to get temperature into the tyres. Hamilton kept on locking going into Turn 1 throughout qualifying.
Hamilton says tyre prep was “nuts” as he continued to lock-up
He felt the tyres were the culprit on his side. It was “nuts” as they had to undertake extra step to prepare them for a quick lap. “Yeah, I was struggling with locking,” continued Hamilton. “I didn’t have it through the rest of the weekend, and now all of a sudden, with the set-up that I have, started locking the front right, but I think it was mostly tyre temperature.
“I think the tyres were the biggest culprit, just really struggling to get the tyres to work, and it was like they’re not really in the first sector, that’s where we lost most of our time, and then they get better through the lap. Doing an out-lap and a prep lap and the tyres are still not ready for Turn 1, it’s nuts.
“So, you just don’t have the confidence to attack Turn 1. I think that was the biggest difference today. I couldn’t do an out-lap and straight in. The tyres went cold, basically. So, I don’t know how they [rivals] did that at the end. We couldn’t. So, luckily the rain didn’t come and we got another lap in.”
Hamilton banks on Ferrari’s better race pace for Dutch GP
Hamilton felt the changes made during the session was pretty straightforward for him, even though teammate Leclerc felt a bit out of balance due to the engine modes. Despite the issues in F1 qualifying, as the Brit alluded before, he is banking on race pace and getting the strategy right.
“I think our race pace was better today [in the sprint],” said Hamilton.” Well, it was good. It was okay, mine wasn’t great, but Charles’s particularly was was good, and I think the car feels much better, I think it’s going to be better tomorrow. So, I think we’ll probably be able to hold on to the guys up ahead at least. Strategy is going to be key, tyre life, pit stop and those sort of things.”
He will have Leclerc alongside on a track where it is difficult to overtake. Ferrari went for the soft gamble in the F1 sprint with the Monegasque and it just paid off. But Leclerc didn’t find similar rhythm in qualifying like he did in sprint qualifying to be only sixth in the order.
Leclerc doesn’t regret Dutch GP prep lap in Q3
He thought Ferrari’s idea was right in Q3 to do more prep lap and he got things right as well. It was probably that others found more than what he did. He had no regret in doing the extra prep lap. “I felt like it was the right choice,” said Leclerc to media. “We’ll have to look because it feels like, obviously, from the car I don’t have a very good view of what’s happening around.
“But it feels like they [rivals] did a bigger step on the second run than we did. So I’ll have to look into it. But with how the tyre felt after my warm-up lap, I don’t regret doing the prep lap, especially because the rain didn’t fall more on the second lap, so it’s not that we had different conditions. So, yeah, they managed to put the tires in temperature for the first lap, we didn’t manage to do that.”
Leclerc feels rivals found more than Ferrari dropped back
In fact, when Leclerc got together with Lando Norris and George Russell , he could ascertain that it was probably that the likes of McLaren and Mercedes found a bit more to improve, when Ferrari started off on a good note straight up. Unlike Hamilton, the engine modes did throw him off a bit in Q3.
“I don’t think it’s down to changes in the car,” continued Leclerc. “Speaking a little bit with Lando and George, I felt like yesterday they didn’t do everything perfect or the car didn’t feel quite right, whereas for me, the car felt quite good yesterday, so I knew maybe we had a bit less margin compared to them.
“And then today we did some, I think, mistakes in changing modes, power modes from Q2 to Q3. That put me off a little bit with the feeling I had with the car, and we’ll have to look into it. But, yeah, I don’t think the potential for pole position was there anyway. Q1 and Q2 as well, and then we reversed. So it was a bit of a, yeah. If I would do the qualifying again, I’ll stay with the same mode on all qualifying.”
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