Mercedes’ racing technical director, Andrew Shovlin, has explained why Lewis Hamilton was so easily beaten by teammate George Russell in qualifying this season. Previously, Saturday was a special day for Hamilton, when the seven-time F1 champion won a record 104 pole positions in his 344 grand prix career.

However, only one of those poles has appeared in the past two and a half years since the current ground effect era took effect in 2022.
And this season was Hamilton’s worst to date compared to his teammate as he was outscored 10-2 by Russell in 12 races. Shovlin admitted that Russell “always sets the bar very high in qualifying” but there is a reason why Hamilton has not achieved the same lap times as his British compatriot this season.

“Lewis didn’t hide the fact that Saturday was a difficult day for him,” Shovlin said. “He struggled with this whole generation of cars that, really, didn’t suit his style. He worked on his driving style. “But we had to work a lot to improve the speed of the car – which is still not fast enough – but also balance the handling so that the drivers can really get on the circuit on Saturday. So, We have made progress.

“Recently, George overtook Lewis by quite a small margin. So it’s great for the team to have Lewis back and he’ll keep going. We’ll keep working on that, and I Surely we hope to see a few more pole positions from Lewis.” Luckily for Mercedes, Shovlin claims that Hamilton’s long-distance pace is “always there”, which “really helps”. However, qualifying is the 39-year-old driver’s enemy, which has affected his chances of scoring many high points.

Explaining specifically why Saturday was so difficult, Shovlin said: “It’s a matter of how he wants to attack the corner. “When you do that, the car loses control. You start to increase the tire temperature. So a big part of our job is to try to provide him with a car that he can drive along with.” attacking style, taking the time to run a lap without losing control on the way into the corner and taking him by surprise.”