Lewis Hamilton struggled in Saudi Arabian GP practice on Thursday and was warned for impeding Logan Sargeant, while Mercedes were given a €15k fine for their part in the incident;
Lewis Hamilton said he experienced a “difficult day” of practice at the Saudi Arabian GP after finishing only eighth fastest and collecting a warning for impeding Logan Sargeant in a high-speed near-miss that Mercedes were fined for.
The seven-time champion and team-mate George Russell experimented with different set-ups on Mercedes’ W15 on the opening day of 2024’s second race weekend, with the latter finishing higher up on the Practice Two timesheet in a session topped by Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.
Hamilton, who finished eighth quickest, was the subject of a post-session investigation after a high-speed near miss with Williams’ Sargeant, who had to take evasive action at Turn 11 to avoid what stewards reckoned would have been a “serious, high-speed crash” on the wall-lined street track.
Mercedes were fined €15,000 (£12,800) for not informing Hamilton about the oncoming car, while the driver himself received a warning.
Reflecting on his Thursday, Hamilton said: “A difficult day. Just lacking confidence in the rear of the car and the set-up.
“We did some work from session to session, changed the car quite a bit, but the underlying issue with the rear end that I was struggling with.
“So I had a couple of really big moments out there. In these high-speed areas you need to have full faith in the rear of the car, and I’ve just not got that yet.”
Hamilton’s fastest time of the representative floodlit evening session after the soft-tyre runs was 0.447s slower than Russell’s.
“We’re going to have to go through the data and stuff, but George is obviously a lot happier with his car,” added Hamilton, who finished seventh in last week’s Bahrain season-opener.
“We kind of went in different directions today. We’re all trying different things to try to find the right solution for the car.
“But yeah, all I want is a stable rear, and then I’ll be happy. So that’s what I’m working on.”
Second-fastest Russell, who finished one tenth ahead of runaway Bahrain GP victor Max Verstappen and 0.230s back on Alonso, said: “For sure Max is the quickest, Checo [Perez] is not too far behind.
“But it’s difficult to follow at the moment. The cars are becoming increasingly harder to follow as the years progress and I think it’s going to be tight again as we saw in Bahrain. Ferrari and Aston probably look like our biggest threats and rivals at the moment, but I think it’s going to go down to qualifying again.”
