Mercedes has defined how a gust of wind contributed to a disappointing qualifying efficiency for Lewis Hamilton in Miami final weekend.
Hamilton set the second-fastest time in Q2 however slumped to ninth on the grid in Q3. Whereas most drivers improved their instances within the later session Hamilton lapped over 4 tenths of a second slower.
The staff’s head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin stated a mix of a tailwind and the sensitivity of the tyres was sufficient to badly compromise Hamilton’s solely lap on the gentle rubber in Q3.
“We have been fairly happy with the lap time he did in Q2 and hoping to to repeat that in Q3,” Shovlin defined in a video launched by the staff.
“It wasn’t actually a problem with the grip initially, and the beginning of the lap was really fairly good. He was unfortunate in that as he got here round to show 11, he received a gust of wind that was from behind.
“What that does is definitely drops the quantity of downforce on the automotive fairly considerably. In order he went into that nook had fairly an enormous oversteer. That then places temperature [heat] within the tyres.
“As soon as that temperature’s in, that’s a really tight, twisty part, there’s no means for them to chill down and that’s what then causes the lack of grip. So had it not been for the gust of wind, it will have been a greater lap for positive.”
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The staff switched Hamilton to the more durable medium tyre compound for his ultimate run in Q3. “The opposite factor that price us was that we solely had one new gentle tyre by that time, so it wasn’t like he might have one other go and try to repeat it,” Shovlin defined. “So it’s irritating as a result of by that time the automotive was working properly for him. He was clearly driving it very properly, and a disgrace that we couldn’t repeat that lap when it mattered.”
Mercedes took the weird step of utilizing a set of mediums in Q3 as they’d exhausted their provide of softs.
“We had a glance in FP1, did a lap on [softs], we weren’t uncommon in doing that. However what was a bit totally different was in Q1 we determined to do two new units, so we really did three runs with each drivers, a used and two new.
“That was [partly] as a result of we’d struggled the day earlier than within the dash qualifying. We needed to ensure the drivers had time to grasp what the automotive was doing, nevertheless it put us one set right down to the opposite. So then once you lastly get to Q3, we solely had one remaining.
“We did really do a run on the medium tyre [in Q3]. We had seen it was fairly aggressive the day earlier than. We didn’t suppose it was faster, however for Lewis really, as a result of the primary the primary spherical had gone so badly with the gust of wind, that medium was really the time that that he certified on.
“We used it as a result of we weren’t seeing an enormous single-lap drop, so we weren’t too anxious about having that lap on the tyre come the race on Sunday.”
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