Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton has admitted that he is irked by his “struggle” in Friday Practice for 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Having finished second at the French GP last weekend, Hamilton unexpectedly struggled with his F1 W13 in Friday Practice around the Hungaroring as he finished seventh in FP1 then 11th in FP2.
Reflecting on his difficult practice sessions amidst annoyance at how his car is inconsistent, Hamilton commented: “The car was a struggle today, it’s crazy how it swings from track to track and tonight we’ll be working on setup to try and get the car working.”
Hamilton went on to add that there hadn’t been much changes between Circuit Paul Ricard and Hungaroring, as he continued: “At the moment, it’s a little loose and not doing what we want it to do.
“Not much has changed since last week, I’m still the same driver! But for some reason at this track, the car isn’t working as well.
“In the glimpses where it was working, we were still down a second which was actually similar to last week. I didn’t get much chance of a long run at the end because I sustained some damage to my floor and lost a lot of downforce.”
Rain is however forest for Qualifying and potentially the race too but Hamilton isn’t too optimistic as he believes it will “be a tough weekend,” as he vowed to give “everything” at the circuit where he has previously won eight times in F1.
George Russell echoed Hamilton’s feelings as he added that Friday Practice in Hungary wouldn’t rank as their “smoothest” of the season, although he described the weather forecast as “strange” with rain forecast for Qualifying and possibly drier for the race.
He therefore treated Friday Practice as like “a test session” so that it is productive in terms of their long-term development for the second half of this season, instead of focusing on “maximising” lap times as he finished fifth in FP1 then eighth in FP2.
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