Lewis Hamilton concerned by lack of Mercedes improvement after Australian Grand Prix practice

Lewis Hamilton has admitted that the changes Mercedes have made to his car haven’t improved its performance, after a disappointing day of practice ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.

The seven-time world champion finished Friday’s second practice session way down in 13th, one-and-a-half seconds slower than leader Charles Leclerc of Ferrari, while teammate George Russell didn’t fare much better in 11th.

Mercedes have been off the pace since the start of the season, with Ferrari and Red Bull emerging as the teams to beat, but while Hamilton still managed to finish on the podium in the opening race in Bahrain, it was clear that a lot of work needed to be done to get the Silver Arrows back to the front of the grid.

Hamilton and Russell’s W13 is suffering from ‘porpoising’ issues where the car bounces up and down on the track uncontrollably, and until this issue is fixed there is little that either driver can do.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff already admitted that there was no quick solution to the matter but nevertheless work has been done on the car since the last race in Saudi Arabia a fortnight ago, but as evidenced by Friday’s timings not much has changed.

‘I feel good, I feel ok, it was just a difficult session,’ Hamilton said after practice was over.

‘It is just nothing you change on the car makes a difference at the moment so that is the difficult thing. You get in very optimistic and then you make changes, and it doesn’t seem to be wanting to improve.

‘We made some changes going into FP2. FP1 was better and FP2 was harder for us. I don’t know, just a tricky car.’

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