Lewis Hamilton expects Mercedes to be fast over one lap in Bahrain this weekend – but cautions that tyre issues are likely to mean that the team again suffers on race pace compared to its key rivals.
“The car is still the same as it was last week,” said Hamilton in Bahrain today. “So it should be quite competitive. But the tyres make a big difference, so that could play a role.”
Regarding his struggles to match his competitors on Sundays he said: “I think that will be relevant here definitely, more so here, it’s always magnified, the race pace [drop-off] and the degradation here is always worse than it is in China.
“It’s different, instead of being the front tyres, it’s the rear tyres here. I anticipate it’s going to be a very tough weekend for us. The team struggled a lot last year. We’ve made a huge step forward in terms of how we look after our tyres, so hopefully it will be a lot better this weekend than what we would imagine is going to happen.”
While there has been a lot of criticism of F1’s current tyre situation, Hamilton is adamant that he’s enjoyed the focus on getting the most out of the 2013 Pirellis.
“It’s not that easy, it’s a lot of different techniques you can have, and as I’ve always been saying there’s so much to learn, I’m always learning, and just in the last couple of months I’ve learned a couple of new techniques which happen to help quite a lot. But there’s still more I need to learn, more I need to improve. But it’s a real good challenge, even if perhaps people are not quite enjoying it.
“I do find it really difficult. I do come out of the pit stop and want to push hard and try and gain, but in actual fact it’s better to go a bit slower on those first few laps, which people are starting to notice. That’s what Kimi and Fernando and Sebastian have been doing, and their long race pace has been really good.”
Adam Cooper F1 