The six-time world champion regretted the difference to Charles Leclerc, who led TL2, and tried to understand Mercedes' lack of pace by blaming the main culprit: Baku's main straight, with its high peaks
In the second free practice for the Azerbaijan GP on Friday (10), Lewis Hamilton was exactly 1s650 behind leader Charles Leclerc: 1min43s224 against 1mins44s874. The Mercedes driver pointed to an old known problem as the main difficulty encountered by the German team at the Baku circuit: the dolphin effect.
"(Most difficult factor of the day) Quiques. (I'm) a bit sore, but... we're reaching high speeds at the end of the main straight and the car quiques a lot," the seven-time world champion complained again.
"The tires, for us, seem to work well. No problems to start the lap. I can't tell you where the 1s6 difference (to the leaders) is...I know a lot of that difference is on the main straight," Hamilton added.
The Mercedes driver also pointed out that the team made changes to the W13's settings between one free practice session and another on Friday. In the opening session, Hamilton was better: fifth position and a difference of "only" 1s1 to leader Sergio Pérez.
Precisely because of this, the seven-time champion indicated that Mercedes should go back to the TL1 settings, when the pace was noticeably better, therefore.
"We tried something experimental on my car, and (pace difference between practice) doesn't feel great, to be honest. At least we tried. We got data to analyze, and we will probably reverse what we changed," he finished.
GRANDE PRÊMIO follows all the activities of the Azerbaijan GP LIVE and IN REALTIME. On Saturday, TL3 is scheduled for 8am (GMT-3), while qualifying starts at 11am.