Hamilton: “We lost 6 tenths on the straight. The gap on the engine is large, it will take months. Silverstone won’t be easy”

F1 Austria, Hamilton does not repeat Barcelona From the euphoria of Montmeló to the long faces of the Red Bull Ring. Of course, in Ferrari they knew that the Austrian GP would be more complex, due to the enormous importance that engine power has here, but in Maranello they at least hoped to be second force, or third behind Max Verstappen. The race held in Styria, however, told a different story, with a Red team in extreme difficulty, which also ended up behind a McLaren that was far behind in development. Only Lewis Hamilton saves face, fifth today behind Oscar Piastri. But despite the words of encouragement after the checkered flag, not even the #44 can be happy with his weekend. The seven-time world champion does not hide his concern about a gap that he still considers too wide to be closed in a short time. According to Hamilton, the development of the power unit requires months of design, testing and reliability checks, making an immediate breakthrough during the season unlikely. In short, as Frederic Vasseur says, ADUO is not a magic wand. And now comes Silverstone, another circuit where the power unit is important, although naturally it will also need to have that aerodynamic load that the Red car manages to generate naturally. Hamilton’s words “We had already seen it on Friday: we were the fastest in the corners, but then we lost 6 tenths only on the straight to the Mercedes-powered cars”, this is Hamilton’s comment to Sky Sport F1. “In qualifying we managed to close the gap and do an excellent job during the night, but today there was also overheating: the car slipped and the balance was very difficult. I thought I could keep up with Russell’s pace at the beginning, but then the tires started to degrade. And then they went away on the straight, so you had to push harder in the corners to make up that difference, but I didn’t expect it to be so big. Here we are at altitude and we thought maybe we had a better chance, but instead we didn’t that’s how it went.” “I think the gap at the engine level is very, very big. I don’t know if it can be bridged in one season. It takes months and months to develop, to test the reliability and make the necessary changes, and I have no information on that. I think we can make another progress later in the season, so we have some very challenging races ahead of us,” he added. “In other circuits, with many corners, we hope to be in better conditions. If we think about Silverstone, it won’t be easy, because there are long straights, but it’s a track on which I usually go well.”

Automobile Magazine – Formula1 English, News

2026-06-29 02:21:00