Lewis Hamilton feels it’s hard for Max Verstappen to empathize with the porpoising in his car in comparison to Carlos Sainz. The Briton had a light moment with the two podium sharers as he took a subtle dig at the Dutchman in jest.
The Briton commented on his confidence going into the British GP. He said:
“I think we’re better in medium and high-speed corners probably, than we are in the low-speed corners so I…but we have bouncing, so I don’t know how it’s going to be through Copse and all those places. Max [Verstappen] doesn’t know what I’m talking about – but Carlos [Sainz] knows what I’m saying. So, it’ll be interesting for us there. But yeah, really excited to get back to the UK, the weather’s incredible right now, so I hope it’s the same next week.”
Looking ahead to the Silverstone weekend, the seven-time world champion feels that the bouncing could return in the high-speed sections of the circuit. Although he is excited to return to his home circuit where he has clinched eight victories, it is unclear as to what he can expect from the car.
Taking a subtle swipe at Verstappen in jest, Lewis Hamilton stated that the Dutchman will not be able to understand the bouncing on his car but maybe Sainz could. In response, Verstappen imitated the bouncing effect on Lewis Hamilton’s car.
The Ferraris also had a bouncy car and suffered from the porpoising phenomenon, while Red Bull remains the only team to have eliminated bouncing completely.
Lewis Hamilton reveals Mercedes changed his setup for the Canadian race
The Mercedes driver arrived in Canada with an extremely experimental setup for his car, which did not work in practice sessions. Lewis Hamilton revealed they had to change the setup for the race. Despite the changes and the improvement in balance, the Briton feels the bouncing on their car refuses to go away.
Describing the improvements in the race compared to the rest of the Canadian GP weekend, Hamilton said:
“The balance I had on Monday (sic ‘Friday’) was neutral, super positive, so no rear end. And as soon as you apply one degree of turning, the rear end’s come around. So, I was just fighting that constantly and it was very difficult to keep it out of the wall. That’s why I didn’t finish my long run, because it was just undriveable in the set-up window that we tried.”
He continued:
“It was just an experiment, to see whether the car would work there, it didn’t. So, then we made the changes, and today was a much more…a much, much better balance in terms of I had a little, nice amount of understeer today, better traction, not having those snaps. So, it was night and day difference. We still have bouncing, that’s not going away.”
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In Montreal, the two Mercedes drivers matched Red Bull and Ferrari in terms of race pace. With Silverstone up next, it will be difficult to predict if their car will perform seamlessly since it’s a more conventional circuit compared to Monaco, Baku, and Canada.
