Lewis Hamilton “starting to find his groove” as “more confident” observation made

F1 pundit James Hinchcliffe has praised Lewis Hamilton for his performance across the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, claiming he’s “starting to find his groove”.

Hamilton recovered from a disappointing Q2 exit to finish eighth in Baku.

The seven-time world champion was eliminated early in qualifying after Ferrari didn’t give him fresh rubber for his final Q2 effort.

Up until qualifying, Hamilton had looked comfortable around the Baku streets.

To Hamilton’s credit, he’s proven to be a closer match to Charles Leclerc since the summer break.

His crash at Zandvoort and grid penalty at Monza have masked his true progress.

Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, Hinchcliffe observed a more confident Hamilton in Azerbaijan.

Hinchcliffe said: “8th and 9th just seems like such a transparent result. Like, it’s a bit of a footnote. But in a race where we were expecting a lot of the out of position cars to make big ground and almost none of them did, Hamilton from 12th to 8th and beating Leclerc, that might have been one of the drives of the day.

“It was kind of hidden and not really talked about. Obviously, Max, obviously, Carlos, obviously, George. But I think behind that, Hamilton’s drive - he actually made some progress. 

“He beat his teammate. He was so much more confident in his race car this weekend. He visibly looked lighter and more enthusiastic and happier to be at the racetrack than he has for quite some time.”

A breakthrough for Hamilton?

Lewis Hamilton’s difficulties with this year’s Ferrari have been well documented.

The British driver hasn’t been happy with the brakes, given Ferrari run Brembo rather than Carbon Industrie.

Additionally, Hamilton has stressed how different the Ferrari is to drive compared to Mercedes, making every weekend a dive into the unknown.

Hinchcliffe is hopeful that this possible breakthrough for Hamilton translates for the final seven races of the year.

“I really, truly hope that whatever it is they found, because we’ve seen this on in sessions maybe over the last half the year and maybe over a day, but it’s never over a weekend,” he added.

“He really carried that optimism all weekend long, even after the poor qualifying, going into the race, he was still optimistic he could make some ground up. 

“Relatively speaking, he did. I really hope that whatever they found translates to other racetracks because Hamilton’s starting to find his groove in that car. That’s - that’s exciting for everybody.”