Silverstone’s qualifying was one of the most entertaining ones in the 2022 season. While Lewis Hamilton looked ready to lock in a front-row seat, rain and last-minute decisions held the Briton back. Hamilton, in fact, had P4 momentarily before Sergio Perez’s Red Bull forcefully shifted him further below.
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Hamilton’s teammate George Russell had worse luck. The driver also momentarily captured top positions before being pushed off to P8 in the end moments. Notably, Russell also couldn’t get past a very quick Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso. However, the race might still just prove to be another top 5 finish for him.
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But in the bigger picture, team Mercedes somewhat failed to capture qualifying as they would’ve expected to. Post-race, the seven-time world champion explained what went down for him, “I think in a single lap, in the the dry we would have struggled to have gone higher than 5th probably, because the others were quite quick. “
“I think in a single lap, in the the dry we would have struggled to have gone higher than 5th probably, because the others were quite quick. Maybe we could have been 4th maybe, because we have progressed a bit, but in the wet I was fighting for the…1/2pic.twitter.com/NmA10T1rYY
— Sir Lewis Updates (@LH44updates) July 2, 2022
“Maybe we could have been 4th maybe, because we have progressed a bit, but in the wet I was fighting for the front row and yeah a little bit…it was just that last lap. It rained more in the last lap than the lap before, it was where we should have nailed it which everyone else did and I was told to back off that lap. So it’s just unfortunate, but we’ll try and fight from there.”
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The team was excited about the weekend beforehand, with Russell even announcing a possible threat to the top two. However, clearly, the rain did not help the team and spoiled the party further.
Mercedes fails to impress Lewis Hamilton with British GP updates
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Why did this happen despite bigger updates for the Brackley outfit? The team engineers had taken earlier out of the time to explain things going on with the car. In fact, the technical team recently even admitted to “not done a good enough job with the design of this car”. However, they did depend on the upgrades to push the car forward.
Formula One F1 – British Grand Prix – Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone, Britain – June 30, 2022 Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton wearing a protective face mask during the press conference ahead of the Grand Prix REUTERS/Andrew Boyers
The W13 included around 6 big changes that were supposed to be visible on the car. The Front suspension, Sidepod inlet, Floor body, and Rear wing all underwent changes for better performance.
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However, the results proved disappointing. Hamilton also seemed relatively disappointed despite being hopeful earlier. Mercedes fans are not exactly impressed either. So what do you think? Can they still do it in the race?
