Lewis Hamilton has admitted that his second practice session in Melbourne this week was one of the “worst” he has had in his illustrious career.
It’s been another difficult start to the year for Hamilton with Mercedes failing to close the gap to Red Bull in the off-season.
He’s started the season with a seventh and ninth-placed finish in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia respectively.
Toto Wolff suggested after the previous race in Jeddah that he was confident of things improving for Mercedes in Australia.
But that doesn’t appear to be the case from their run in FP2 with both Hamilton and George Russell struggling to keep the car on track at times.
Lewis Hamilton appeared fed up with the Mercedes troubles
SKYSPORTS
The seven-time world champion had a number of changes made to his car for FP2 and couldn’t get anything to work during qualifying-style runs and race simulations.
He ended up 18th fastest – ahead of only Kevin Magnussen and the sidelined Alex Albon.
Hamilton cut a gloomy figure in the media pen after the session and appeared despondent about his chances going into the weekend.
“I don’t feel great,” Hamilton said while looking down at the floor.
“We had one of the worst sessions I’ve probably had for a long time.
“FP1 generally felt quite good. The car actually in FP1 run one it felt the best it’s ever felt and it just got worse and worse.
“We made some big changes into FP2 and it was tough.”
He added: “After that session I feel the least confident I’ve ever felt with this car.
“But… there are positives from that FP1 run that we did… no.”
Wolff admitted that the changes made to Hamilton’s car ‘dramatically backfired’ and conceded it was a bad day for the team in general.
Lewis Hamilton finished 18th in FP2
GETTY
“In the second session we have gone through quite a dramatic set-up change on Lewis and that has dramatically backfired, but this is why we are having those sessions,” he said.
“On the other side it was a bit better [with Russell] but we are lacking performance.
“On a single lap if he finishes that lap we are a bit better, but overall it wasn’t a good day.”
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It’s now the third consecutive season where Mercedes have failed to truly challenge at the front of the grid with Red Bull, but Wolff still isn’t giving up on finding the missing piece of the puzzle.
He added: “If I would say I am not frustrated it would not be the truth. Certainly, we are because we are trying so much in all directions but don’t seem to have found that silver bullet yet which helps us to get us in the right direction. But we have got to keep trying.
“We have seen performance in this car before and I just don’t want to go back and say we are not good in these regulations because we have everything to need in order to get on top of that – and we will.”
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