Lewis Hamilton lays Mercedes' struggles bare with honest verdict after Melbourne practice

Mercedes‘ struggles look set to continue at the Australian Grand Prix this weekend with them having another pretty tough set of practice sessions on Friday in Melbourne.

The Silver Arrows have not had the start to the season they would have liked, with the car struggling for balance and suffering more than pretty much any other with porpoising at high speed.

Indeed, the issues were laid bare last time out in Saudi Arabia for Lewis Hamilton as he qualified P16 and finished the race P10, and it appears more unsatisfactory results could be on the menu this weekend in Oz.

Earlier on Friday, he achieved P7 in FP1 but then only P13 in FP2, and the W13 was over a second off of the Ferraris in top spot on both occasions.

Such a gap in F1 is pretty monumental, and Hamilton said that whilst he is feeling fine within himself, trying to find a solution to the car and its issues is proving very difficult indeed:

“No I feel good, I feel okay, it was a difficult session,” he said to Sky.

“It’s just nothing you change on the car makes a difference at the moment, so that’s the difficult thing you know, you’re getting very optimistic and then you make changes and then it doesn’t seem to be wanting to improve.

“We made some changes going into P2 [Practice 2], P1 was better and P2 ended up being a bit harder for us. So I don’t know, just a tricky car.

“Well I don’t think it’s going to be tricky to find our way back, there’s just not a lot we can do, this is the way it is and so we just have to drive with it.

“So that’s just the frustrating thing, you’re trying to push, you’re trying to catch, and even when you do a decent lap you’re 1.2 seconds down, so it’s difficult.”

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