Q & A with Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton was always expecting the deficiencies in his McLaren to show up at Barcelona, but even he seemed unusually downbeat after first practice as he feared a tough time ahead at the Spanish Grand Prix
AUTOSPORT heard from Hamilton as he showed clear disappointment with his short answers about a difficult first day on track.
Q. Where do you think McLaren is standing at the moment in Spain. Who are you fighting against?
Lewis Hamilton: Against the back! That is our true pace, as you just saw.
Q. So you are not confident for this race?
LH: No. We don't have the pace at the moment from what it looks like. But, tomorrow is another day and we hope that we can get better.
Q. The team said in Bahrain that with low speed corners maybe the pace there was flattering. Here, with high speed turns, is it more representative of where you are?
LH: Of course. Yes, that is what I said coming into the weekend and it is even worse than I expected.
Q. So a difficult weekend?
LH: Yes, it is going to be a tough one for sure.
Q. But can you sense any progress you have made since that troublesome test here?
LH: Since the test we have had here, yes there has been a little bit of progress for sure. It is not as bad as it was at that time, but it is still a long way away.
Q. So how did the modifications work?
LH: They didn't.
Q. Not at all?
LH: I haven't felt any improvement.
Q. So being in Barcelona, will you be able to overtake?
LH: Here you can overtake on the main straight.
Q. How do you approach qualifying - all three parts?
LH: We have to try to get to Q2, and then work on from there. I think it is going to be hard work to get into Q3 tomorrow.
Q. Is the car better here though?
LH: Nope. This weekend is not better. It was better in Bahrain for sure.
Q. So you are not hiding anything for Sunday?
LH: I wish we were, but we are not. We are pushing but unfortunately we tried some upgrades and they are not working for me.
Q. Are things on the car not working then?
LH: There has been no improvement to the car whatsoever.
Q. So you don't seem hopeful then?
LH: What we experience in practice, we definitely have a few problems. But we will still battle our way through - we just cannot carry the speed through the high speed corners like the others can. We are so slow through Turn 3 and Turn 9, we lose a lot of our time there.
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