Lewis Hamilton speaks to the medi
Lewis Hamilton has downplayed his 6-1 deficit to George Russell in the Mercedes team-mates’ qualifying tussle, after all, his race pace is “pretty decent”.
Although Lewis Hamilton holds the record for the most pole positions in Formula 1, 104, the Briton last added to his tally at the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton ‘not getting too hung up’ on qualy stats
Additional reporting by Sam Cooper
So far this season, he has secured a P2 in Sprint qualifying at the Chinese Grand Prix, but he has not yet managed to qualify within the top two rows for any Grand Prix.
In their qualifying head-to-head, he has only managed to beat Russell once in seven qualifying sessions, putting him behind his compatriot.
In the 2014 season, Hamilton was only out-qualified once by Nico Rosberg, resulting in his sole defeat in that battle.
The Briton maintains that he is not concerned.
“In terms of priorities, I wouldn’t necessarily say it hasn’t been a focus. However, our primary objective for the entire weekend has been to enhance our performance across all aspects,” he informed the media, including PlanetF1.com, as the Monaco Grand Prix weekend approached.
“However, especially since the conclusion of last year and throughout this entire year, Saturdays have been consistently unpleasant. Nevertheless, we must accept the situation as it is.”
“I will keep working on it, and although I haven’t reached a strong position yet, there are still plenty of races remaining to resolve that.”
“I have ample time to smooth out any flaws in both my performance and the car’s.”
“I’m not overly fixating on it; my race performance is quite good, so luckily I can rely on that as a backup.”
The 2024 F1 team-mate wars in numbers
F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates
F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates
Lewis Hamilton: The W15 is a real work in progress
In contrast to last year’s grand unveiling of a significant upgrade package at Monaco, Mercedes will take to the grid this year without incorporating any new components.
Hamilton has revealed that his W15 will undergo a two-part update in Miami and Imola, with the only change being the addition of a high downforce wing.
He said that there are no upgrades scheduled for this weekend as they had already implemented the package over two weekends during the last two races.
“We possess the utmost downforce level, a common attribute among all competitors, along with an advanced wing design. However, apart from these factors, our understanding of our performance for the upcoming weekend is uncertain.”
“I am undeniably more enthusiastic about it in contrast to the previous two cars, as those two cars were rather underwhelming.”
“This particular project is still a work in progress, but I believe it will hopefully show significant improvement compared to how it was last year.”
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