Mercedes drivers had opposite feelings after Emilia Romagna GP qualifying: Lewis Hamilton complained about lack of grip However, his teammate George Russell was satisfied with the improved pace of the improved Mercedes W15.
After a strong first day at Imola, Lewis Hamilton was baffled by a lack of grip in qualifying for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
The seven-time world champion came close to being eliminated in the first quarter, but eventually made it through to the final segment.
However, he was unable to match his teammate George Russell’s Q3 lap time and finished eighth.
“The car felt really good on Friday, but today we struggled to find the same level of grip.
” It was frustrating and I think the little changes we made before qualifying had a pretty big impact.
But George has done a great job and being just 4/40 from pole position is obviously a good step forward for us.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough and couldn’t keep up.
“Tomorrow we’ll probably try to make up some places.
We’ll work on it tonight to see if we can improve, but it’s very difficult to overtake here, so unless something special happens, we’ll try to make up a few places.
” Meanwhile in the garage, Russell was pleasantly surprised by the increased speed of his upgraded W15.
The Briton was just 0.
4 seconds off pole-sitter Max Verstappen’s record, confirming Mercedes’ development efforts over the past two races.
“I was very happy with my final performance in Q3.
I think it was a really strong round and a good session overall.
Of course it’s frustrating to be 1ms behind your competitors But I think that was our biggest accomplishment today.
Therefore, I think 6th place is a reasonable result.
It’s very difficult to overtake here, so unfortunately we can’t expect many overtaking maneuvers tomorrow.
But we hope we can be proven wrong and regain some ground.
“The car feels much better than it did in the last race.
Of course lap times are everything so we have to keep working and keep improving.
We have seen others progress and And that gives us courage.
”
