Lewis Hamilton ‘praying everything’s ok’ with Ferrari after suffering Mexico GP blow

Lewis Hamilton is “praying everything’s ok” with his Ferrari Formula 1 car after he stopped on track with a technical problem in second practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix. 

Seven-time world champion Hamilton was 11th in the FP2 timesheets after his Ferrari ground to a halt with an apparent engine issue before he could complete his qualifying simulation runs on the soft tyre. 

Hamilton also missed out on crucial long runs as he lost over half the session, marking an early set-back to his weekend at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. 

Charles Leclerc topped both sessions on Friday to underline Ferrari’s promising potential in Mexico, but Hamilton is left in the dark about the status of his SF-26. 

“I was feeling really good in the car. I think we did a really good job in getting the set-up in a better place. Just really unfortunate,” Hamilton explained. 

“I think we are really competitive this weekend as a team and then didn’t get to do the long runs so I have no idea how… I know how hard it is to overtake here.

“They are still investigating to find out what’s wrong and I’m just praying everything’s ok.” 

Rubbing salt into the wounds for Hamilton, the 41-year-old Briton also spent the first part of opening practice conducting experiments with his Ferrari, which further took away from his preparations. 

“I missed a little bit of time in P1 because we did the rake running,” he added. 

“Normally I would have one of the young drivers do P1 at this track, like most people did. But I opted to do it somewhere else.

“So basically I’ve only had really one session because I missed pretty much at least half of that session. 

“I don’t think I need to make many changes to the set-up. It’ll probably be much the same because we were very quick.

“I already had a loss of power earlier on in the lap and was still quick.

“I’ll give it everything tomorrow and just try to do the best with whatever I have.”

Hamilton also rejected Ferrari being cast as the early favourites in Mexico, after Mercedes’ George Russell suggested the high-altitude conditions could give the Scuderia “quite an advantage” with its smaller turbo. 

“I don’t really agree on the turbo thing,” Hamilton said. “If you look at the speeds to the Mercedes and the Red Bull, they’re still quick at the end of the straights, like they are every race. So the turbo is just not making a difference. 

“It’s still pulling more at the end of straights. So I think we’re still losing a good two or three tenths, but the car is behaving very well.”