Lewis Hamilton was left scratching his head over the Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's inability to get their tyres up to temperature during qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix. Both Ferrari drivers needed two warm-up laps before pushing, a situation Hamilton described as “nuts”.
Hamilton and Charles Leclerc struggled to bring their tyres into the optimal window around Zandvoort, ending up fifth and sixth in Q3 – their joint-worst result this summer. They were three to four tenths off polesitter Lando Norris.
“I think the tyres were the biggest culprit today, just really struggling to get them to work,” Hamilton said. “They're not really in the first sector, that's where we lost most of our time, and then they get better through the lap. Just do an out-lap and a prep lap, and the tyres are still not ready for Turn 1, it's just nuts. So, you just don't have the confidence to attack Turn 1. I think that was the biggest difference today,” he added.
Asked if the car could have done a flying lap straight after the out-lap, the Brit replied: “Couldn't do an out-lap and straight in. The tyres were cold, basically. So, I don't know how they did that at the end. We couldn't. So, luckily the rain didn't come, and we got another lap in.” When told other teams were managing better, he could only agree: “They definitely did yesterday, and they did today as well.”
Leclerc shared a similar assessment. “I felt like doing two warm-up laps was the right choice,” said the Monegasque. “Obviously, from the car I don't have a very good view of what's happening around, but it feels like they did a bigger step on the second run than we did. I'll have to look into it. With how the tyres felt after my warm-up lap, I don't regret doing the prep lap,” he explained.
It's not all doom and gloom for Ferrari, though. Hamilton praised Charles Leclerc's race pace as “particularly good” and expects a stronger showing on Sunday. “It's definitely a tendency where we seem to be faster in the race than we are in qualifying,” Leclerc mused. “Yesterday was a bit of an exception, but otherwise we always seem to struggle in one lap,” he concluded.
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