adminMONTREAL. – Lewis Hamilton says his podium at the Canadian Grand Prix has given him hope that Mercedes can return to competitiveness this year.
The seven-time champion had not scored a podium since the first race of the season and his result in Montreal ended a run of difficult races.
“It has given me a lot of hope there is more to come from this car, that the potential is truly there if we can get the set-up right,” Hamilton said.
Prior to Montreal, Hamilton had been out-qualified by team-mate George Russell for three consecutive races, and had not finished ahead of him since the first race of the season in Bahrain.
Partly, that has been due to Russell’s own highly impressive form this season. It remains an open question as to who will ultimately prove the faster, and there can be no higher compliment for Russell than that.
But there have also been bad luck and awkward circumstances for which Hamilton cannot be blamed. And at the same time the team’s more experienced driver has been taking on what has been more often than not the less effective choice out of a series of set-up gambles by Mercedes as they seek to get on top of their recalcitrant car.
After expressing how “so happy” he was to finally have a good weekend, Hamilton half-joked that “maybe the second half of the season George can do the experiments”.
More seriously, he said he thought that it was time for the team to not take matters quite so far as they seek to edge towards Red Bull and Ferrari on performance.
“We are just trying to progress as a team,” Hamilton said. “Moving forwards, we will be a little more cautious on doing too many experiments as it really does hinder you through the weekend, especially if you only have first and second practice in the dry.
“There are lots of learnings from this weekend and improvements we can make going forwards but really great pace today. It is so nice to see. That has not always been the case with this car.”
Hamilton finished only seven seconds behind race-winner Max Verstappen, as the Red Bull driver held off a late charge from Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, and there were times during the race when he was matching the leaders’ lap times. But it is important to keep this in context.
The race was neutralised by a safety car with 20 laps to go, and resumed with only 16 remaining. Hamilton lost that margin in those laps, despite entering them hoping he could “just about keep up with them”.
As such, Canada did not mark a significant step forwards for Mercedes on performance. The car remained where it has been all year, about 0.8secs a lap slower than the Red Bull and Ferrari. It just showed better tyre degradation than them – so it moved towards them on pace as the stints developed. – BBC Sport
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter