Simulator hater Hamilton puts in the hours after difficult few races

Lewis Hamilton openly admits he rarely gets behind the wheel of the Mercedes Formula 1 simulator as it’s something he doesn’t enjoy, but with Mercedes no longer the dominant team, he’s been putting in the hours.

Hamilton has never hidden the fact he hates simulator work, with much of that carried out by former F1 driver Anthony Davidson.

“I hardly ever drive on the simulator. I maybe do 20 laps a year, maybe. I have no interest in the simulator,” was a comment from the seven-time F1 champion earlier this year.

He has also referred to it as a “very bad computer game” in the past.

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But his attitude has changed now that Red Bull have won four races in a row, with the Briton keen to see if he can find something extra.

“Well, I can’t say that I’ve necessarily enjoyed the sim work,” Hamilton said ahead of this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix.

“Particularly after the last few difficult races we had, I went in to try and see if there’s any way I could try and help the team just be better prepared.

“I think there’s been a couple of good things from it, but not life changing. I’ll continue to work with Anthony [Davidson] and the drivers on there that do a lot of work.

“I think just working on the processes of how we communicate with them on their program. So we’re getting the right things tested. I think overall, it’s been positive.”

Mercedes have fallen behind Red Bull by a couple of tenths, so any small gains could swing the momentum in their favour, and Hamilton knows the team are doing their all to try and find that extra performance.

“I’ve just tried to figure out in my mind where else I could take the setup. Everyone’s working so hard to try and see what more we can extract from the car,” added Hamilton.

“Obviously, there’s short term and long term. So for me just trying to figure out what I can do differently this weekend, to eek out a little bit more performance. That’s really where I’ve just been putting my energy towards.”