Lewis Hamilton feel Mercedes It has the advantage of maximum speed Ferrari In Monza, which will be decisive in the Italian Formula 1 Grand Prix.
Ferrari upgraded the engine at Monza as permitted under ADUO, and got its home tour off to a great start with Charles Leclerc Leads 1-2 in first practice.
But in the second practice George Russell Mercedes battled back to lead the session ahead of Leclerc in second while Hamilton dropped to fifth, 0.457 seconds behind. While the settings changes appeared to backfire during second practice, Hamilton was also concerned by the top speed shown by Mercedes.
“Straight-line speed is something to worry about,” Hamilton said. “Just looking at the delta there, I was losing almost six-tenths to George, just on the straights. Which is something we need to look at.
“Then, to balance it out, it was really difficult to pull the lap out of the car. It wasn’t easy to drive in FP2 for some reason. So we made some changes but it wasn’t supposed to be really bad. So we might come back, but we’ll look and see if we can improve the car.”
Hamilton was unsure of the reason behind Mercedes’ top speed deficit, but gave his nod to the updated engine which is understood to deliver 15bhp more power and is estimated to halve Mercedes’ deficit.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photography: Sam Bagnall/Sutton Images via Getty Images
“What we need to look at is the spread,” Hamilton said of the deficit. “But the engine is an improvement, and I’m really grateful to the guys who are back at the factory to work on it. But our deployment schedule is different from others, namely our competitors.
Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur also gave his support for the engine upgrade and felt that Mercedes’ deficit was due to multiple factors and not just engine power.
“It looks like they might have less resistance on the straights, so that’s something we need to look at for sure,” Vasseur said.
“You have to consider straight-line performance. It’s the drag, it’s the weight of the car, everything. It’s not just the engine. We definitely made a step and we didn’t get ADUO2 for nothing. But I think we still have a good margin.”
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