Lewis Hamilton issues ‘just as bad’ W15 verdict in challenging Hungarian heat

Despite its ongoing improvements and upgrades, Mercedes’ W15 is still struggling with hot conditions at the Hungarian Grand Prix, leaving Lewis Hamilton to state that the car is “just as bad” as it was at the start of the season.

Air temperatures crested 30 degrees Celsius at the Hungaroring, and track temps were even hotter; for Mercedes, that meant a return to the heat-wave struggles that have been plaguing its W15 since the start of 2024.

Lewis Hamilton: W15 is “just as bad” as before

Speaking to Lawrence Barretto after FP2, Lewis Hamilton acknowledged that for all of the upgrades to his W15, the machine still isn’t fully equipped to handle high temps.

“It felt just as bad as it normally does when it’s hot,” Hamilton said.

In the start of his interview, Hamilton mentioned the hot temperatures several times before saying, “The car just hasn’t felt good setup-wise, but I think we have an idea why.

“We’ll just work overnight. But not the best so far.”

Barretto asked how Mercedes had approached its alterations between practice sessions, and Hamilton admitted the team had opted for “little tweaks.”

“But the car was pretty much the same,” Hamilton said, “and there’s a particular thing that we left that we changed into this weekend that we probably need to go back on.”

He did not elaborate on what exactly that change was.

“But yeah, it’s all relatively close otherwise. We couldn’t do the pace of the other guys today, but the long-run pace was pretty decent at the end.”

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That being said, it’s not completely grim for the Mercedes squad. Hamilton finished 10th in FP1 and improved to seventh in FP2, while teammate George Russell finished fourth and fifth.

The results will likely make for a challenging qualifying session on Saturday, but Hamilton’s statements imply some confidence that the team will, at the very least, be able to hold its own in the race.

In the Friday Hungarian GP press conference, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said a win this weekend will be “a long shot.”

“ The thing where we’ve still got the kind of question mark on performance is rear-limited circuits in hot conditions,” he elaborated.

“It’s going to be very hot on Sunday. So that’s what we’re working on. But I wouldn’t put us as favorites here.”

However, he was confident that Mercedes could use the Hungarian Grand Prix as an opportunity to begin rectifying the issues so that they’ll be less problematic at hot tracks in the near future.

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