Lewis Hamilton says he is pleased to have switched back to an earlier version of Mercedes’ clutch having blamed a newer one for poor starts in recent races.
Hamilton started from pole position at the last race in Austria but was immediately passed by team mate Nico Rosberg. Hamilton said he had been unable to make good starts with the new clutch, and has reverted to the old one this weekend.
“I’ve gone back on clutch set-up which feels really good so far,” said Hamilton, “just like it did in the first few races.”
Hamilton said his first day of practice was “not perfect” after ending second practice almost half a second off his team mate. “We’ve got some work to do overnight but the pace is decent,” he said.
“I didn’t have the ideal balance on the long runs and I’ve got a bit of work to do on set-up. But otherwise it’s all been good.
“The tyres feel strong – it doesn’t take too long to warm them up which is a positive.”
“Saying that, Ferrari look strong again here and they were right there with us today,” he added, “so it should be a good battle.”
“Hopefully we’ll find a bit more tomorrow otherwise we could find ourselves in trouble.”
kpcart
3rd July 2015, 17:18
how many clutches are teams allowed to use per season?
scuderia_fan85 (@scuderia_fan85)
3rd July 2015, 17:27
Ferrari are three tenths down on Mercedes and are only 2nd and third because Lewis is lagging. look what will happen tomorrow in quali; Merc front row lockout. and three tenths a lap is quite a bit, cant win a race with that deficit.
all the talk from Merc about Ferrari is really to detract from their dominance. but Ferrari are no way challenging Merc since Bahrain and that was because brake trouble not outright pace. F1 is the most boring international motor sport right now. MotoGp has surpassed F1 based on the level of competition in the 2015 season; Yamaha, ducati, Honda and Suzuki.
Becken Lima (@becken-lima)
3rd July 2015, 18:01
Curiously, Rosberg was complaining about wanting to do practice starts in all FP2…
Luca Nuvolari (@nuvolari71)
3rd July 2015, 18:15
Usual sandbagging. They will “magically” find half a second in quali over everyone else tomorrow. And look at the top speed… they are very heavy on aero… As a Ferrari fan, I am much more worried about the Williams, looking much closer now. Merc are still in their own league
Young Gun
3rd July 2015, 19:13
If Vettel and Alonso were in that Mercedes, they would blow away Rosberg in a heart beat and win the championship with 3 or 4 races to spare or even more. I’m baffled as to why Hamilton is called the best driver when he can’t dominate Rosberg like many other drivers would.
Hambo fan
4th July 2015, 10:50
I think you’re discrediting Rosberg here. He’s no slouch or pushover and had the measure of Schumi on his return. As for Alonso and vettel it’s pure speculation that they would dominate Rosberg. Think about it, vettel has been beaten by webber (on occasion), and was made to look mediocre last year by Riccardo. Alonso hasn’t had a really strong team mate since Hamilton in 2007 (maybe owing to number 1 status). Hell even Schumi has been beaten by Barichello on pure pace at times so to say you’re baffled by Hamilton’s performance is a little short sighted.
Even if you go back to Prost/Senna, Senna was regarded as the faster driver yet lost to Prost many times. It’s all about who can maximise their car setup, driving etc on a particular day in time and even the best get it wrong
Dongorgan (@dongorgan)
5th July 2015, 5:58
They’ve gone back to the new clutch for Hamilton. the clutch this season suited Hamilton but not Rosberg, who complained that his starts were better with the 2014 clutch and both cars were reverted to that version. But, now Rosberg will run the 2014 clutch and Hamilton the 2015 version