Lewis Hamilton 'disappointed if FIA has allowed' Mercedes F1 power advantage
Lewis Hamilton hopes Mercedes' power advantage in Australia is not a result of compression ratios
Lewis Hamilton hopes that the huge advantage that Mercedes displayed over its Formula 1 rivals in Australian Grand Prix qualifying is not due to the compression ratio trick that the manufacturer is using.
George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli will start Sunday’s race from the front row, with the pole man 0.8s ahead of rivals.
Lewis Hamilton referenced the compression ratio saga that led to the other manufacturers lobbying the FIA for change, after Mercedes was found to have exploited a loophole in the regulations in pre-season testing.
This has now been addressed by a change to the testing process which will be introduced by the FIA from 1 June, just before the Monaco Grand Prix.
However, Hamilton noted that if Mercedes' pace is purely as a result of compression ratios, he will be pushing Ferrari to do the same because it will effectively be "season done" if the Silver Arrows have such an advantage.
“I don’t understand it exactly,” he said when asked by Crash.net about the Mercedes advantage.
“They didn’t show that they could turn it up in testing, and now they’ve got this extra power from somewhere. We need to understand what that is. I hope it’s not this compression ratio thing.
"Hopefully it’s just pure power and we’ve got to do a better job. But if it is the compression thing, then I will be disappointed that the FIA have allowed that to be the case and not to the book. And I will be pushing my team to do the same thing, to get more power.
"If they have a few months of that, then the season is done. Not done, but seven races, a few months, then you lose a lot of points with a second behind in quali.”
Hamilton meanwhile had a strong Q1 session, but had a power issue in Q2 and finished qualifying in seventh place.
“It’s been a great weekend up until Q2 basically,” he said. “The car was feeling good, I was pretty happy with the car, engine, everything.
“So we got to Q2 and we basically lost power, so I had to come back in. On the medium tyre we were looking quite solid, and then when we ended up going back out, we ended up behind more people, losing more temperature in the tyres.
"And we just got out of synch, and we didn’t get a good lap time after that.”
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Adam Cooper attended his first F1 race at Brands Hatch as a 10-year-old fan in 1976. He became a freelance journalist for Autosport magazine in 1985 while still at university, initially covering everything from club racing to the FIA World Sportscar Championship.
