Another W15 breakthrough as Lewis Hamilton believes Mercedes have ‘cracked it’

Lewis Hamilton up close in the Mercedes W15

Lewis Hamilton has credited a breakthrough in understanding how the Pirelli tyres work with his W15 for unlocking his pace in qualifying.

Hamilton pulled one back in the qualifying head-to-head stats against his team-mate George Russell at the Spanish Grand Prix, before turning his P3 starting position into a first podium for the season.

Lewis Hamilton reveals crucial breakthrough

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Hamilton’s final campaign as a Mercedes driver has been far from ideal with the Briton not able to match Russell’s performances, most notably in qualifying.

Usually the Mercedes driver dominating the qualifying stats, Hamilton was 8-1 down heading to the Barcelona circuit before pulling one back as he qualified in a top-four position for the first time this year.

“There’s a huge amount of analysis,” he told the media including PlanetF1.com. “I have requested a lot of information from the team on how we can improve, where we are lacking.

“It is simply the tyres and so just continuing to improve on our processes from session to session.

“Typically, once we get to qualifying, things do change a little bit. The car is obviously lighter, you are in the DRS a lot more.

“Time will tell but I think we cracked something. Now to try and build on it.”

The 2024 Mercedes head-to-head battles

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👉F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Lewis Hamilton: The car aerodynamically is on a knife-edge

Hamilton believes his issues with the W15 have been exacerbated by his tyres woes with tyre temperatures and nailing a perfect out-lap “key” to qualifying success.

“The car aerodynamically is on a knife-edge,” he said. “It’s not as easy to balance with the mechanical side. The aero balance from high to low speed getting that configuration is difficult.

“But tyre temperature and how you do your out-laps is key which every single team is trying. The Ferraris in Montreal didn’t get out of Q2 for example – that can only be tyre temperature but they’ve got a good car, they won the race before that.

“It just shows it’s not easy to have the tyres working, it’s easy to over-work the tyres. They’re definitely more sensitive than in any other season that I remember being.”

He added: “Getting a perfect lap is always… the pressure is incredibly high I think on these weekends where you’ve got a Sprint race.

“And I think just with the cars nowadays they’re just a bit more on a knife-edge. But I think we getting into a good place, the engineers are doing a really great job.”

Heading into round 11 of the championship, Hamilton sits eighth in this Drivers’ standings where he is 11 points behind Russell.