04 November 2023 , 17:26
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Lewis Hamilton demanded a car that is "easier to drive" after two underwhelming qualifying results in Brazil.
The seven-time world champion could only steer his Mercedes to fifth on the grid for Sunday's Grand Prix. And he repeated the result in Saturday morning's Sprint Shootout which set the grid for the final short-form race of 2023.
"P5 is never going to feel that great," he said rather glumly after the main qualifying result, adding: "I did the best I could though and hopefully we will have a better race on Sunday. The car was showing signs of decent performance, but we did seem to be a couple of tenths off the guys right at the very front.
And he had a similar air about him as he reacted to achieving the same result in the Shootout. However, this time, Hamilton lay down a challenge for his Mercedes team as he asked for help to get more out of his machine.
"[This] is generally the pace our car has been for quite some time," he said. "It's our normal average scoring position – always pushing for more. My last lap wasn't really that spectacular, I think I probably could've been one or two places further forward, but I gave it my best.
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"Maximising the time on each of the tyres is always a challenge– getting the right temperatures etc... I think I did, just had a bit of snap at the last corner and lost a tenth and a half. The car needs to be easier to drive, which it's not."
Team-mate George Russell managed one place better in the Shootout and has his eyes on those ahead of him. But he admitted that the stars aligned somewhat for him to be able to produce the lap time that he did.
"We'd like to stand here and say we made some gains, but the truth is that conditions play a huge role," Russell said. "Sometimes it comes into your window, sometimes it goes away, and it just worked in Q3.
"The lap was good, it was clean. P4 – I think that's where we expected we'd be. Excited for this afternoon. I trust our race pace is going to be better than our quali pace. I'm sure Max [Verstappen] is going to be quickest. The Ferraris are behind us, which is good news, and then eyes forward on Lando [Norris]."
Russell had qualified sixth on the grid for Sunday's race to share the third row with Hamilton. But he was given a two-place penalty by the stewards for blocking rivals in the pit lane exit, which is now forbidden after a rule changed ahead of this weekend's action.