Hamilton happy to prove chassis ‘myth’ wrong with P2 in French GP qualifying

Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton says he was happy to disprove a “myth” surrounding Mercedes’ chassis change with his qualifying performance at the French Grand Prix.

Lewis Larkam

19 Jun 2021

Lewis Hamilton (GBR) Mercedes AMG F1 W12.
© xpbimages.com

Mercedes swapped chassis between Hamilton and teammate Valtteri Bottas heading into the weekend to help balance out mileage between the two cars, but suspicions were raised about the change given Hamilton’s struggles to match Bottas throughout the three practice sessions.

The seven-time world champion recovered strongly in qualifying as he secured a spot on the front-row of the grid, two-tenths down on Max Verstappen’s stunning benchmark and one position ahead of Bottas.

Speaking to Sky presenter and ex-F1 driver Paul di Resta in the post-qualifying interviews in parc ferme, Hamilton said: “I saw you coming up with some myth and so I was happy to be able to prove it wrong.

“The quality of our engineers work', all the cars are exactly the same.”

Expanding on the chassis change later in the FIA press conference, Hamilton added: “It’s basically the same cockpit with your own settings.

“Both the cars are built around us, so normally you are not supposed to feel any difference. Of course, we made changes and it’s been a difficult weekend, and of course you start to wonder at some stage whether there are any differences, but look at that result.

“We just got a great result today and that just shows that its all the same. It’s normal that we rotate, we do that anyways.”

Hamilton admitted it had been a “really hard weekend mentally” after his early pace struggles, revealing a number of changes were key to his qualifying turnaround.

“You wouldn’t believe how many changes I’ve made since practice one,” he explained.

“Going round and round, chasing the tail, ending up coming back to something similar to where we started. Generally, I’ve been unhappy in the car all weekend.

"Congratulations to Max, he did a great job today,” Hamilton added. "They’ve been incredibly quick. You see they have a new engine for this weekend, not a new spec or anything as far I am aware.

“They’re quick down the straights. I think it was a lot of time down the straights today. We’ve got a race on our hands and we’re loving the battle. We are going to keep pushing, keep fighting and giving it everything.”