Lewis Hamilton had a good sprint qualifying in China. The Ferrari driver recorded the fourth fastest time and only had to concede to Lando Norris and both Mercedes. Despite taking sprint pole in Shanghai last year, the seven-time world champion was remarkably positive afterwards. According to Hamilton, the SF-26 felt strong, although he points to a clear weakness on the straights and the gap to Mercedes.
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“I am very satisfied with the session,” Hamilton reacted to the press afterwards. “My engineers did a fantastic job to get the car back on track, because the first free practice was quite difficult with that spin.” After a short duel with Lando Norris, Hamilton ended up off track in the first and only practice hour. “The car felt great overall,” he continued contentedly. “I just think we are losing time on the straights. And that is exactly where time is very precious.”
‘Mercedes is doing a fantastic job’
According to the Briton, that is currently the biggest priority for Ferrari. In the corners, the team can compete with the competition, but it still falls short on power. “We still have a lot of work to do,” he continued. “The car feels great and I think we can compete with them in the corners, but if you lack power, the times don’t improve. I think we were already aware last year that Mercedes would get off to a flying start. They did that in 2014 too,” he said with a wink. During that last major regulation change, Hamilton himself benefited from the pace of the Silberpfeile. “They have done a fantastic job and we must do everything we can to close that gap.” After sprint qualifying, Hamilton already did his best to unravel Mercedes’ secrets: in parc fermé, he took a close look at the W17.
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During practice, Ferrari experimented with a new rear wing: the striking swivel concept that also caused a stir during winter testing in Bahrain. However, it was removed from the car again prior to qualifying. Hamilton admitted that the update might have been deployed too early. “I don’t actually know why we put it back on,” he said. “We rushed it here and it was actually only supposed to be on the cars from race four or five. It was maybe a bit too early, so we took it off. The car was still great and we will work on putting it back when the time comes.”
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