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Lewis Hamilton believes that Mercedes has come a long with the Pirelli tyres, but thinks there is still some area for improvement. At the start of the year, the Brackley squad had a major weakness in the form of getting the tyres into the right working window.
The softer tyres also gave them a lot of pain, with the ultra soft compound not getting up to temperature as quickly as it did on some of the other cars. Despite making some steady progress on the woes, Hamilton outlined some areas where there are still problems.
"I think we’ve come a long way. I think we are definitely on top of it, but there are still traps we are aware of," Hamilton said. "We have blistering, and the blistering is shown in the last few races that the cars go faster, pushing the tyres harder, that’s appearing. Understanding where that comes from, that shifts from track to track."
Hamilton added that the team is still learning about the tyres race after race: "We’ve seen the blowout that Ferraris had at Silverstone. It’s a constant study and something we are surveying all of the time. Same for me as a driver, I sit with my tyre engineers and I am constantly picking their brains just trying to make sure that I understand how to utilise them more, how far I can push them.
"That’s going to be an ongoing thing as we go through these next ten races as we continue to learn more about them. We are definitely in a good place, but there are still some surprises that could come up I guess."
Fergal Walsh
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
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calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
The car's way of handling the tyres is very likely the main problem. The Mercedes is confirmed to be overweight this year compared to the very slim and welldieted Ferrari, so part of the tyre eating is likely down to that. Bottas is generally very good at managing tyres, so its no real surprise t... [Read more]