Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 2018

Hamilton wanted chance to run hyper-softs on Friday

2018 Canadian Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton says he would have liked the chance to test the hyper-soft tyres on Friday at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve after the problems Mercedes encountered with them in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Mercedes did not run the softest tyre available today having only chosen five sets of the hyper-softs, while their rivals all have seven or eight.

“Ultimately we don’t have as many hyper-softs as anyone else,” said Hamilton. “We have to select it quite far ahead from our test when the tyres didn’t last, that’s the information we got there. We planned for a different strategy, everyone else I think they’ve got eight sets and we’ve got five.

“Tomorrow hopefully we’ll get a good feeling and hopefully it’s not too different to what we’ve been driving today.”

Hamilton admitted he would have preferred the chance to run on the hyper-softs after the difficulties Mercedes had with them in Monaco.

“Hindsight is a great thing so naturally it would have been great to have been able to try the hyper today,” he said. “Others have, [I’ve] seen some that have degraded a lot, some haven’t. But P3 will be the time that we take it for a spin and have a look at it.”

“I think we’ve definitely understood it,” he added, “but still you have to set it up, you have to go with a certain spec.”

“With each tyre, the hyper seems to require something different to the ultra and the others so we’ll see tomorrow.”

Despite not using the hyper-softs Hamilton set the fourth-quickest time in practice, 0.579 seconds slower than pace-setter Max Verstappen. He said the car felt strong from the first lap.

“It’s not always that we start right out of the box but I think it started right and there were some things that we just needed to adjust along the way. We are making small increments from one time out to another, it always feels a little bit different but yeah it’s been good.”

“Because we’ve got the extra DRS section it means we can actually run more wing this year as opposed to previous years,” he added. “We’ve always had very low downforce settings but now it’s kind of normal so through the corners it feels great.”

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5 comments on “Hamilton wanted chance to run hyper-softs on Friday”

  1. “Because we’ve got the extra DRS section it means we can actually run more wing this year as opposed to previous years,” he added. “We’ve always had very low downforce settings but now it’s kind of normal so through the corners it feels great.”

    I was looking forward to watching a low-downforce race but I guess I’d have to wait until Monza

  2. YellowSubmarine
    8th June 2018, 23:29

    The pace of those Mercs on the hypers will be frightening, if they are only. 579s slower despite being on a harder tyre.

    1. i think exactly the same… and they dont even have the upgrade yet… but some people focusing on saying theyre the underdog and ferrari has a rocketship

      1. Let’s wait till qualifying as the times right now are meaningless. Ferrari will gain at least 1.5 on their best time so far.

  3. SparkyAMG (@)
    9th June 2018, 6:57

    It’s interesting that Hamilton has described the Mercedes changes to their wing lebel following the addition of a third DRS zone.

    Are all these DRS zones actually to blame for the additional amounts of downforce the teams can run without comprising their optimum pace, which in turn is likely to make following corners harder?

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