After a frustrating weekend in Canada the Austrian GP was a more positive experience for Lewis Hamilton – and one that he needed ahead of Silverstone and the biggest weekend of his season.
Hamilton and Ferrari team mate Charles Leclerc have both been calling for upgrades for several weeks, and the first step finally arrived in the form of a new floor.
It wasn’t flagged internally as being worth a significant chunk of time, but it appeared to improve the SF-25. Hamilton was certainly happier after qualifying fourth, while knowing that a small snap had cost him a shot at second.
The start of the race saw him have a brief but enjoyable tussle with former team mate George Russell, and having won that battle he settled in fourth and stayed there for the duration.
It was a decent performance, and he left Russell far behind. However he wasn’t happy with a 9.2 second gap to Leclerc – and his priority now is a search for better race pace.
“Great start, and a great battle with George from Turn 1 to 3 all the way to Turn 6,” he said when I asked about his race. “And I managed to hold on to it on the outside, which is pretty awesome.
“And after that, the car didn’t feel too bad. I was able to hold on [to Leclerc] for a second, but then I was really struggling with the balance, and we have brake issues, so having to manage these brakes from really early on, which was losing definitely some time.
“That’s something I’m really pushing to get fixed, because that’s not great. And then with balance, I was really struggling just through balance.”
Hamilton conceded that the new floor had been a better boost than anticipated as Ferrari nudged ahead of Mercedes by a single point into second in the World Championship.
“Well, I think we’ve moved forwards,” he said. “I think the upgrade was quite small, so we didn’t really know. They didn’t even mention any time, because it was that small, but I think perhaps it was a bigger result from putting the floor on. And so that’s a real positive.
“Really great to see the team bringing the upgrade and us moving forward. Being the second fastest this weekend, and getting third and fourth is a real positive. So there’s lots of good things to take from a weekend, and there’s lots of areas to focus on.
“I think qualifying was better. We found a problem that I had through my qualifying lap, which lost me a tenth due to some issue on the car. So that’s again, a positive, but I would have gone backwards if I started second anyways. So I’ve got to find race pace. That’s key for me.
“I’m still losing massive ground, to lose eight seconds, nine seconds to Charles is not good enough.”
Intriguingly after qualifying Hamilton noted that he was able to move closer to Leclerc’s set-up. When I asked why that wasn’t possible before he said: “Just struggling with the balance. I mean, he drives a massively oversteering car and somehow slides the rears and doesn’t have degradation. When I slide the rears, I get massive degradation.
“So it’s definitely something I think you have to… I suppose it took Carlos a couple years to get used to. So I don’t want to do that. I think I’m improving. As I said, I’ve got closer in quali, didn’t have the race pace.”
Hamilton remains hopeful that the next Ferrari upgrade, the last for the 2025 car, will provide some benefit – and at least enough to ensure that the team can fight Mercedes for second in the World Championship.
“Well, compared to McLaren, I don’t think anyone’s catching them,” he said. “But never say never. Hopefully with our next upgrade that works the way we hope it works, and maybe that’ll bring us a little bit closer. But we’re not a minute down this weekend, which is great.
“We should be fully focused in terms of development onto next year’s car soon, or ASAP. I’m sure all the teams are doing that already. I know Mercedes is already focused on next year.
“The key is going to be developing that engine, making sure that [we come up with] the right philosophy for next year, suspension wise-and everything.
“And I’m trying to work on with the engineers to make sure we rectify some of the issues with this car, because there’s a few problems that need fixing.”
Adam Cooper F1 