A downbeat Lewis Hamilton raised a question mark over his Mercedes future following a “disaster” in Canadian Grand Prix practice.
The seven-time world champion has been a willing participant in the team’s mission to find solutions to the bouncing issues that have blighted their car in 2022.
However, Hamilton’s patience does appear to be wearing thin after another frustrating day that saw him finish only 13th in the second session in Montreal.
“Pretty much like every Friday for us,” he said summing up practice.
“Trying lots of different things, an experimental floor on my side which didn’t work. Nothing we do generally to this car seems to work so we’re trying different set-ups.
“Me and George went with very different set-ups in this FP2 just to see if one way works and one way doesn’t. I’ll wait to hear how it felt for him, but for me, it was a disaster.
“It’s like the car’s getting worse. It’s getting more and more unhappy the more we do to it.”
Mercedes’ bouncing problems have seen Hamilton visibly struggle with back pain in Baku, while the 37-year-old has also revealed he’s suffering more headaches than before.
And when it came to finding a solution, it was then Lewis conceded the team will need to resolve it if he is to continue beyond his current contract that ends after 2023.
“I don’t know. We’ll keep working on it. It is what it is. I think this is the car for the year, so we’ll just have to tough it out and work hard on building a better car for next year,” he said.
“We’re going to get this fixed by the end of next year at least. So hopefully that’s not going to be something to stop me racing for longer. But time will tell.”
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As for this weekend, Hamilton is known as a Canada specialist with seven wins in his career, tied most with Michael Schumacher.
But he admits his usual optimism for the race is being impacted by the difficulty of taming the W13.
“It’s not the Montreal that I know, that I’m used to and that I’ve experienced in my career,” he declared.
“It’s the worse that I’ve ever felt any car here. It’s just a monumental fight the whole time to keep it out of the wall.
“One touch of the kerbs here and the car goes flying. It’s so stiff, and here in Montreal you really need to ride the kerbs.
“When it bounces, when the car leaves the ground a lot, and then when it lands it grips up and it goes in different directions, and you’re just trying to catch a car that jumps, hops, grips, hops, grips,” he explained.
“It’s tough. It keeps you on edge and there were some big hits today – we’ve raised the car, but it doesn’t make a difference.
“We’ve tried loads and loads of things. We’ve ticked them all off. Those ones don’t work, so we have to go and find something else. We’re way off, but it’s to be expected with this car.
“I’m hoping overnight we can try and make some changes, but fundamentally it’s just the fundamentals of the car. It is what it is. It’s going to be a struggle,” he admitted.
