Hamilton’s ‘don’t want to race what we had’ verdict after ‘long’ season with Ferrari

Unhappy with his SF-25’s balance in practice in Mexico, Lewis Hamilton says he does “not want to race” the car as it was on Friday as he nears the end of a “long year” with Ferrari.

Hamilton finished Friday’s second practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix fifth on the timesheet, only three-tenths down on pace-setter Max Verstappen. But the Briton wasn’t happy with the setup of his car.

Lewis Hamilton: “It’s been a long year”

The seven-time World Champion sat out Friday’s opening session as Antonio Fuoco covered one of Ferrari’s mandatory young driver outings in a session that was topped by Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque driver laid down a 1:18.380 to beat Kimi Antonelli by a tenth of a second.

FP2 saw Hamilton as well as eight other race drivers return to the cockpits of their respective cars, with Verstappen setting the pace ahead of Leclerc, 0.153s up. As for Hamilton, he was fifth.

The Briton, though, was anything but happy about his performance on the day.

“It’s been a long day,” David Croft said to Hamilton.

The driver quipped back: “It’s been a long year.”

A year that has yet to yield a debut podium in red for Hamilton, who could yet record his first-ever season in Formula 1 without a podium result. Already he holds the unwanted record of most races by a new Ferrari driver without standing on the podium.

More on Friday’s action at the Mexico City Grand Prix

👉 Mexican GP: Leclerc tops new-look opening practice

👉 Mexican GP: Verstappen fastest as title charge continues in FP2 as Piastri struggles

Barring a change of fortune on Saturday, which Hamilton will work on overnight with his engineers, the 40-year-old isn’t expecting miracles in Mexico.

“I’m surprised how relatively close we are given how not great it felt,” he told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets in Mexico. “I mean, every time you come here, the grip is, because of the altitude we’re in we’re all running pretty high downforce, but it’s low, it feels lower than Monza.

“So you’re sliding around trying to find grip, but it’s just not there.

“But yeah, it wasn’t disastrous, but obviously because I miss FP1 – Antonio did a really great job, so nice to be able to watch him drive and experience and have fun in my car, which is really cool – and then the car was sliding around a lot, so the balance is very open.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do overnight to try and figure out how to find a more streamlined balance.”

He added: “Sliding, that’s never fun. Not unless you’re in a rally car. Definitely not in a Formula 1 car.”

Pressed on whether there was a “danger” in going too far away from Friday’s setup given the track conditions would evolve on Saturday, Hamilton replied: “I mean, there is always a danger of it, but I don’t think it can make it worse.

“Touch wood, but I’d be really surprised if it’s worse.

“We won’t obviously be silly with the decisions we take. We’ll look through the data tonight and then try and come up with some plans, but I definitely don’t want to race what we had today.

“The long run balance wasn’t disastrous, but we need to get more from the tyres. I know there is more pace in the car.”

Although Leclerc finished the day ahead of both McLaren drivers, and Hamilton was up on Oscar Piastri, the former reckons McLaren still has an advantage over Ferrari in race pace.

He asked his race engineer Bryan Bozzi: “I guess McLaren are on another planet, no?”

Bozzi replied: Yeah, for now Norris is very fast.”

Hamilton was asked about his teammate’s comment, and replied: “I haven’t seen any of it, so I have no clue, honestly. I saw a GPS of one of the McLarens, but they think they lost a bit time in the high speed.

“So I don’t know where they’ve lost their pace, because they were at one point, like a second, eight tenths, half a second ahead, and now they’re… But I’m sure they’ll pull out some good pace tomorrow, they’re a great team.”

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock

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