Originally Posted by
GustavoTrunci
article of Gary "Will Hamilton's woe continue in Canada?"
As a die-hard Lewis Hamilton fan, I just wanted to know what went wrong on Lewis's car at Monaco. Is it just the set-up, or something else? Did Mercedes give him a different set-up to Bottas and could this affect the next race in Canada?
Rohan Devara, via Facebook
I am sure the engineers at Mercedes would also like to know what happened there! They will be trawling through the data trying to find whatever widget it was that wasn't widgeting correctly.
I'm pretty sure there would be at least subtle differences in the set-up between the two cars, but they should be easy to recognise. Remember, in FP3 both Mercedes cars were struggling a little bit. While Bottas got it together for qualifying, Hamilton didn't.
Since last month's post-Bahrain Grand Prix test, I don't think that Hamilton has been as comfortable with the car as Bottas has. They altered something on the set-up there to try to improve the tyre life and whatever it was seemed to affect Hamilton that little bit more.
Both of them drive quite differently. Hamilton likes to take his braking right into the apex of the corner, and for that you need rear-end stability on the brakes.
Bottas brakes more in a straight line, and is then fairly reactive with the steering wheel going through the corner. For that you need consistent front grip, while both need good traction.
Watching the car at the Barcelona test and again in the grand prix on television, I believe the Mercedes has inherent understeer. But around that understeer, the rear of the car is rotating so in effect the whole car is sliding.
I'm pretty sure it doesn't just lack grip, and if Mercedes tries to fix the understeer, the rear rotation will just get worse. If Mercedes tries to fix the rotation, the understeer will just get worse, so it's a Catch 22 situation. It also looks worse with softer tyres.
To me, the Ferrari doesn't show any of these characteristics no matter what tyre it's on.
Montreal is a whole different deal and I'm pretty sure Mercedes still has a little bit extra power over Ferrari. In Canada, that will be an advantage. But if the Ferrari chassis has a better balance, the team may just be able to aerodynamically trim it that little bit better. So I'm expecting the battle to continue.
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