Lewis Hamilton downplayed the benefit obtained by Ferrari during the filming day held at Madring, before the Spanish Formula 1 GP. According to the British driver, the only really useful information was discovering ‘which way the track goes’.
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On July 9, Hamilton and Charles Leclerc drove the Ferrari car on the new circuit, marking the first time an F1 single-seater ran the layout. However, the restrictions of a filming day greatly limited the knowledge the team could extract from the activity.
Ferrari could not use updates on the car and also had to run with special Pirelli tires, specific for this situation. In addition, the track conditions were not very representative, with a lot of dust and low grip levels.
“So, I think it was practically nothing. It was dusty, super, super dusty and there was no grip at all, and we can’t change the car because it’s not a test, it was a filming day,” Hamilton told the press.
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The seven-time world champion also pointed out that Ferrari did not push the car to the limit during the activity: “We weren’t even fully accelerating in many of the corners, because we had little power and little grip. The benefit, the only thing I saw, is knowing which way the track goes. So, honestly, I don’t think there is any benefit,” he added.
Despite this, Hamilton believes Ferrari arrives at the new circuit with a good preparation base thanks to the simulations carried out by the team. He highlighted that the setup will be particularly sensitive to conditions, including wind, temperature, and track grip, as well as tire behavior.
“The guys do a great job with the simulations here and in the team, so we often arrive with a car in a pretty good situation,” Hamilton concluded, who described Madring as a ‘massively challenging’ circuit and compared its difficulty to Jeddah among the new tracks he has already experienced.
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