Current generation of F1 cars ‘don’t suit’ Hamilton’s style

Mercedes technical director Andrew Shovlin believes the problems Lewis Hamilton has experienced in qualifying in recent years are due to Formula 1’s current generation of ground-effect cars “not suiting his style”.

Although Hamilton holds the record for most pole positions in Formula 1 with 104, he has only managed to win qualifying once since the introduction of the new cars in 2022.

This season, the seven-time world champion trails his Mercedes teammate George Russell 10-2 in Saturday afternoon’s single-lap practice.

“George always set the bar very high in qualifying,” Shovlin explained. “And once he got into Formula 1, he impressed.

“Even in Williams he had quite impressive qualifying sessions, so we know he is very fast,” Shovlin said on Friday.

“Lewis has made no secret of the fact that Saturdays were his tough days. He has struggled with this whole generation of cars, which really didn’t suit his style. He has worked on his driving style.”

According to Hamilton, the core of the problem lies primarily in the demands of a single lap, as Shovlin explained.

“He’s been struggling on the single lap especially,” he said. “So his long run pace is always there. And that’s been really helpful.

“It’s more the way he wants to attack a corner. If you do that, the car would oversteer. You start building up the tyre temperature.

“Most of our work was trying to give him a car that you can drive very aggressively, that you can squeeze out the lap time without the car pulling away on the way in and surprising him.”

While Mercedes has addressed the issue to some extent, Shovlin admits there is still room for further improvement.

“We’ve had a huge amount of work to make the car: a) faster – it just wasn’t fast enough – but also with a handling balance that allows the drivers to actually attack the lap on Saturday. So we’ve made progress.

“Recently George outqualified Lewis by quite a margin. So it’s great for the team to have Lewis back and he’ll keep pushing. But yeah, we’ll keep working on it. And I’m sure we’ll hopefully see a few more pole positions for Lewis as well.”

As Mercedes continues to refine the car and adapt to the challenges of the current generation of Formula 1 cars, hopes remain that Hamilton can regain his dominant form in the qualifying sessions.

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