– Ferrari continues to puzzle over the large difference between qualifying and race pace compared to Mercedes. While the gap in the race remains manageable, the gap in qualifying is significantly larger.
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Lewis Hamilton believes he knows why that might be the case. The seven-time world champion suspects that Mercedes has a particularly aggressive power mode in qualifying. Hamilton knows the inner workings of his former team very well. The Briton drove for Mercedes for many years and won several world championship titles there.
“I was at Mercedes for a long time, so I know how it works there,” says Hamilton. In his opinion, Mercedes activates a special mode in qualifying. “They have another mode, a bit like the old party mode.”
Big jump in qualifying
This power mode becomes particularly noticeable from the second qualifying session onwards. According to Hamilton, Mercedes only unlocks the additional mode during the course of qualifying. “As soon as they are in Q2, they turn it on – and we don’t have anything like that.”
That explains the suddenly much larger gap. “In Q1 we are still quite close. And then all of a sudden seven tenths are missing.” Charles Leclerc also confirms that Ferrari does not yet fully understand the big difference. The performance difference between qualifying and the race is surprising.
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“There is a big difference in qualifying that we can’t really explain at the moment,” says Leclerc. At the same time, Ferrari is significantly more competitive in the race.
Race pace much closer
Leclerc emphasizes that Ferrari has made great progress in tire management in recent years. Nevertheless, he does not believe that this factor alone explains the difference. “In the race, we are suddenly back in the game,” says the Monegasque.
The new rules are very complex, which is why Ferrari still has to analyze a lot of data. Mercedes driver George Russell therefore expects a closer race than qualifying would suggest.
“We were a bit surprised ourselves by our strength in qualifying,” says Russell. In terms of race speed, he sees Ferrari much closer. “In the race, it looks very close between us.”
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