Lewis Hamilton (fifth, Mercedes): “I don’t know what will happen yet, but I’m hopeful, I know everyone is working very, very hard, but we’ve had three races and no progress in all three races. So I really hope we can get as much information as possible from tomorrow’s race over the next week. (Sunday) and hopefully we can somehow figure out how to fix something for the next race.
In some places the car is not terrible. Only she’s not as fast as the others. What I’m really unhappy with is with porpoises. This is the worst feature I’ve experienced in a car. And we can’t get rid of it now. For folks watching at home, if the ride height varies up and down you never know what position you’ll find it in when you turn it and the car can oversteer or understeer depending on that so driving is a real challenge – it’s like a rattlesnake !
“We have to find the right balance with the ride height to give us performance while controlling the rebound”
We have to find the right balance with ride height to give us performance and control tomorrow’s rebound. George (Russell) and I tried something different on our cars today (Saturday), so I hope it’s a good learning curve for the team ahead of the race. †
George Russell (sixth, Mercedes): “It was a stampede, in every sense of the word! I was fighting on the track with the other drivers to clear the track to put in a good lap, I struggled with my car, I really struggled today (Saturday) to set this sixth fastest time. It was a difficult session for us, but we expected it. We’ve been aggressive with the set-up as many of the corners on this track are quite fast, but we still lack speed on the straights… Approaching Turn 13 I think I was four tenths slower than Norris, and I almost made it up in the end. It’s difficult, but we try to find the best compromise. Teams like McLaren and Red Bull don’t have porpoises, and that’s where we want to be. †
