Lewis Hamilton is hoping rain disrupts proceedings at the Belgian Grand Prix as he rued balance woes with his Mercedes Formula 1 car in the opening practice hours.
Mercedes came into the weekend optimistic that cooler temperatures and upgrades to the W15 could inspire the team to be in contention with McLaren and Red Bull.
However, Hamilton was perplexed as he slipped to 10th place on the timesheets in the second practice hour, 1.2 seconds behind Lando Norris in the leading McLaren.
The Briton has explained how set-up changes between the two sessions improved his handling on the long runs, but he was unable to extract pace on his low-fuel lap.
“It was a pretty bad day,” Hamilton said, despite being inside the top five in FP1. “Yeah, I don’t really know what to say.
“Obviously, it’s been feeling great in the past couple races, and it just felt completely different today.
“So we worked on it the first session, was not great, then in the second session made some changes, and it started off great.
“Then when I got to the Soft tyre I just couldn’t improve, and there’s a bunch of balance issues we have through that.
“But it was better in this session, but everyone went even better, so to be 1.2 seconds, is not great.”
Hamilton, who is chasing a third consecutive podium, has conceded that he is banking on the anticipated rain arriving to elevate Mercedes closer to the leading pack.
“Fantastic, because if it’s drier then we’re not going to be in the greatest of places, but overnight, we can make some changes for sure,” he added.
“I think if it rains then that opens it up a little bit, and hopefully, we can do a better job. I think the car should be better in the wet than it is in the dry.”
Meanwhile, George Russell ended fourth and sixth in the respective sessions, but he concurred with his team-mate’s assessment regarding Mercedes’ outright pace.
“Yeah, it’s always nice being here in Spa. It’s a super cool track, very fast this year, with a bit of a resurface,” he expressed.
“We’ve got some work to do tonight. I think McLaren are definitely a step ahead of us at the moment, and Red Bull. So just need to keep on assessing and go from there.”
However, Russell suspects that McLaren was operating in a higher engine mode than the works team as he harbours optimism Mercedes can make a step overnight.
Asked whether Mercedes’ relative competitiveness was a shock, he replied: “I mean, it’s only been 10 minutes since I’ve jumped out the car. So I need to have a look.
“Look at the long fuel pace, the long run pace sorry, at high fuel. And then I think the McLarens were at max power, which gives you a couple of tenths around this track.
“So, tomorrow is definitely a different day. I’m sure we can find a bit more tonight.
“But we’ve often had very good Fridays and the others have caught up on Saturday, so hopefully that’ll be us this weekend.”
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