Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc lamented conditions and ttiresafter a disappointing end to F1 US GP qualifying.
After topping the three F1 practice sessions shared between Hamilton and Leclerc, it all came undone in qualifying for the US GP at the Circuit of the Americas. They ended up only fourth and fifth after a bad start in Q3 on the first run.
They both managed to improve in the second run, but it was a marginal gain. In the end, Leclerc was fourth and Hamilton fifth, when Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli took pole from the Red Bull pair of Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar.
Both Antonelli and Hadjar managed to get ahead of them from where they were in practice. It is a story of how Ferrari has been all year long in F1 qualifying. The conditions changed a bit by the end of qualifying, which affected their run.
For Hamilton, he felt pretty solid with the tyre preparation and the lap; he had no issues. But he lamented the lack of straight-line speed, which he feels is the limiting factor for Ferrari. He reiterated that their F1 rivals have caught up on the cornering speed, but they have not gained as much on the engine side.
Hamilton Had No Issues As Straight-Line Speed Comes in Picture
“I don’t know; I haven’t looked at the data,” said Hamilton to the media after US GP qualifying. “We know that throughout the weekend we look at the straight, like just up to Turn 1, Max; when we cut power, they just keep pulling.
“And that’s similar in another place, like into Turn 11, where I think it might be similar, maybe into Turn 12, but then the rest of the lap a little bit; you see it on the overlay, but I don’t know what happened; the car felt really good. The lap was solid, so they were just.
“I had a really good out lap. It’s a clean lap, no issues at all really. I think that’s the only place where I think our car is really solid. At least as good as this, maybe slightly better than maybe the other, but I think they have closed up on the chassis. We’ve seen Red Bull close up on their downforce.
“Mercedes took a good three-tenths step of lap time at least they saw a couple of races ago. I think they’re starting to figure out how to utilise that, and so they’re now matching us, but we’re not able to take that step to close that speed on the straight,” summed up Hamilton, who notes that the gap varies from race to race.
Hamilton Says Deficit Varies
Ferrari’s advantage keeps dipping as the lap progresses, while Red Bull and Mercedes gain throughout the lap, with improved cornering speed. Hamilton is not too optimistic about the race either, especially from fifth on a circuit that is difficult to overtake.
“It varies. I mean, I haven’t seen the actual numbers this weekend,” continued Hamilton. “I think this morning was like three-tenths, some races are three to five-tenths, but maybe it’s four-tenths.
“It’s pretty impressive when you…I don’t know if you see the overlays, like at Turn 1 our start dipping, and they just keep going, so that’s hard to compete with. If we had the same power as them, we would be right there in the battle; probably we would be. I think we know that that’s the case, so we try to make the best we can now.
“We have to be realistic. We’re fourth and fifth. It’s very hard to overtake here. If you’re P2 on the grid, it’s hard to beat someone at a race distance. In 2012, it took a lot to get past Vettel back then, but maybe with strategy we can get a good run up into Turn 1. There are opportunities there for strategy, so we shall see,” summed up Hamilton.
Leclerc Stresses on Conditions, Tyres
On the other hand, Leclerc didn’t push as much on the power side, but stressed more about the tyre and narrow window of performance. The conditions changed by the end of the session as it was a lot cooler, and the wind picked up, which made it difficult to get the tyres prepared in the optimum manner.
Leclerc knows it is a problem for Ferrari when their performance just dips from practice to qualifying. “It’s very disappointing,” he said to the media. “Because I think there are some other weekends where we’ve been strong in free practice, but then coming to qualifying, it’s very clear that the others are just having a lot more in the straights, and it’s very difficult for us to match that.
“But I felt like today, it’s a qualifying session where we had the potential in the car, but the car also includes tyres and in Q3, unfortunately, we were not in the right place, and it was like 1 or 2 degrees less in Q3, and for me, it was a huge difference. Just really struggled in the out lap.
Leclerc Calls it Frustrating
“I was sliding quite a lot already from the out lap, and that made it very difficult after that. It’s quite frustrating. But yeah, I mean there are reasons for it, and so, at the same time, I think we just need to work harder and try and understand those tyres very well.
“Even better than what we are doing now because the others, I think, normally have a bit more. It’s a bit easier for them to extract the lap time in Q3 than it is for us, and as soon as we are a tiny bit outside the window, we pay a lot the price. So, this is something that we need to look into,” summed up Leclerc, who was expecting a step up from Q2 to Q3 which never came for him. He didn’t wish to blame it on a narrow window of performance, just that the car’s performance dips when temperature drops.