Lewis Hamilton admits reaching Q3 could be a “struggle” at the Spanish Grand Prix due to the “impressive” gains by others.
The seven-time world champion failed to make the top 10 in both practice sessions on Friday in Barcelona ending Practice 2 in 11th, albeit only half a second behind pacesetter Max Verstappen.
But in the face of growing competition, Hamilton concedes Mercedes’ current performance level isn’t enough.
“It’s so different from last week,” he said post-practice. “I think the long run pace didn’t look terrible and we’ve just got to figure out how we can extract more on a single lap.
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“From the pace I had today it’s a struggle for me currently to get into the top 10, but hopefully, we’ll do some changes overnight.
“I think it’s very, very close between us in that P5 back to P10. It’s impressive to see the improvements that everyone seems to have made all around us.
“If we look at [Esteban] Ocon, the Alpines are doing great. We saw that Aston Martin is second right behind the Red Bull, which is really, really impressive. So it’s not going to be easy, that’s for sure.”
Certainly, it isn’t the type of news Mercedes wanted after introducing a major upgrade to their W14 last weekend in Monaco.
But Hamilton believes their main problem in Spain isn’t the car.
“It’s okay. Were fighting as hard as we can,” he said.
“I would say it was a difficult P1 and P2, just getting on top of the tyres and the degradation. The car feels… The car feels like the car.”
Teammate George Russell managed to finish P8 in FP2 and is confident that further progress will be made as Mercedes understands their new development path.
“It’s only Friday. I think we’ll learn a huge amount and we’ll dig into the data tonight,” he added. “We know that we’re not Friday specialists and we often take a bit of a step on Saturday and Sunday. We are where we are.
“A lot of people are bringing updates to the car. We weren’t expecting to suddenly set the world on fire. We just need to learn what we can from the info we’ve got and try to forward tomorrow.”
During practice, several drivers, including Russell, reported the return of bouncing, particularly on the entry to the now-high-speed final corner after the chicane was removed.
But the Briton isn’t expecting any lasting issues for the rest of the weekend.
“We were just pushing the ride height of the car to be honest,” Russell explained. “We solved it for the second half of the session by just lifting it a little bit.
“It was really bumpy through that final corner, just a bit sketchy through there but it’s same for everyone. We will see what we learn tonight. Definitely, we can find some gains.
“There’s a few surprises out there today but I am sure the story will be slightly different tomorrow and again on Sunday. As we know we score points on Sunday so that’s what we’re targeting.”
