Lewis Hamilton was cruel to be kind with Pirelli having been left baffled by the performance of their 2021 tyre in Bahrain.
The Italian supplier bought two sets of the C3 compound they hope to supply to teams next year for use in both Practice 1 and Practice 2 on Friday.
But asked to evaluate their performance, the newly-crowned seven-time world champion chose his words carefully.
“Oh god…I’m trying my hardest not to say anything!” Hamilton said with a smile.
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“What I want to say is…weekend in and weekend out, every year, we’ve got a team here from Pirelli. I have the utmost respect for the guys that come here and load our tyres up, bring them here and keep us safe. They do an amazing job.
“Unfortunately, I mean we’ve had the same tyre for two years and at the end of 2019, they brought a new tyre, which they normally do, and it was quite a bit worse so they said ‘ok we’ll just keep the tyre from last year’.
“So they have had two years now to develop a better tyre and we’ve arrived at a tyre which is three kilos heavier and it is like a second worse in lap time.
“I know for the fans that doesn’t make too much of a difference, but, from a driver point of view, we are working with brands and partners who are at the forefront of technology and elevate [the sport] and if you are going back after two years of development then I don’t know what is happening.
“It definitely doesn’t feel good out there and it is a worry. I definitely just prefer to stay on these tyres again.
“If that is the best they can do, which it clearly is, it would just be better to stay with this tyre.”
Once back on the usual compounds, Hamilton was able to go fastest in both sessions but he still wasn’t that satisfied.
“Great to be back out [in Bahrain], but today was like a test day so it wasn’t my favourite,” he admitted.
“From my side, we’re not particularly happy with the balance of the car but the track is quite slippy, quite dusty.
“The track works the tyres completely different to other tracks. We’ve definitely got some work to do. Overheating is always an issue,” he concluded.
