0
Lewis Hamilton says the aggressive tyre wear during Friday practice in Mexico could mean that Sunday's grand prix could see multiple pit stops as the optimum strategy.
The soft compound that Pirelli brought to the weekend appeared to drop away quickly on the long-run stints, while some drivers suffered from graining on the medium compound.
Hamilton says the high altitude of Mexico City makes the cars much more difficult to drive, which in turn has a damaging effect on the tyres.
"It's pretty useless here with the tyres, it feels like we're going to be doing a three or four stop kind of thing," Hamilton said. "This place is so aggressive on the tyres.
"As the tyres are starting to grain, it gets a lot easier to lock the tyres up. One lock up on these things and they're like 50p coins. It's rattling your teeth out. Fortunately today I didn't have any of that, I'll try to avoid that.
"We have massive downforce but low air density so you're just sliding around a lot. It'll be interesting. We've got another DRS zone, so I hope that helps us get closer for the racing."
Hamilton ended the second practice session in sixth place, almost a full second down on pace-setter Sebastian Vettel.
While the Mercedes driver admits that he wasn't content with the set-up of his W10, Hamilton affirmed that he still has time to find from the driver's side of operations.
"It's not been a great day, but this is how it usually is for us when we come here," Hamilton reflected. "We've learned a lot, we haven't had any major dramas.
"It's just trying to understand the tyres. It was cool in the morning and a bit warmer in FP2. From the short runs and the long runs, it's hard to pinpoint how to get these tyres working.
"But that's the name of the game. We're not massively of the Red Bulls but the Ferraris... they just keep turning up their engines down the straights.
"The difference between us and them is massive down a straight-line," Hamilton confirmed. "This morning was a bit better, this afternoon I struggled with the tyres and the lap wasn't spectacular. There's more to come for sure, Valtteri was three-tenths up the road.
"It felt quite good in FP1 and then we made some changes into FP2. The track shifted a little bit in terms of its grip level and temperature, and we didn't really get the set-up quite perfect.
"Even within myself, I didn't quite get the lap perfectly together. So I'll be studying that myself tonight to try and figure that out."
Grand Prix of BelgiumLocal time
Grand Prix of BelgiumLocal time
Bahrain International Circuit - Winter testing
M. Verstappen
C. Sainz jr
C. Leclerc
Bahrain
Bahrain
Bahrain International Circuit
Bahrain
Bahrain International Circuit
Saudi Arabia
Jeddah Street Circuit
Australia
Albert Park
Japan
Circuit Suzuka
United States of America
Miami International Autodrome
Monaco
Monte Carlo
Canada
Gilles Villeneuve
Spain
Circuit de Catalunya
Austria
Red Bull Ring
United Kingdom
Silverstone
Hungary
Hungaroring
Belgium
Spa-Francorchamps
Netherlands
Circuit Zandvoort
Italy
Monza
Azerbaijan
Baku City Circuit
Singapore
Marina Bay Street Circuit
United States of America
Circuit of the Americas
Mexico
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez
Brazil
Interlagos
United States of America
Las Vegas Street Circuit
United Arab Emirates
Yas Marina Circuit
462,948 comments on Mercedes
66 members have this team as their favourite
Tweets about Lewis Hamilton
600,393 comments on Mercedes 56 members have this team as their favourite Tweets about Mercedes
Replies (0)
Login to reply