Monaco Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton encouraged by upgrade package after ‘amazing’ practice run
ewis Hamilton expressed his encouragement at his upgraded Mercedes after the first day of practice for Friday’s Monaco Grand Prix, even though the principality’s narrow and winding roads offered no space for meaningful judgement.
The seven-time Formula 1 champion, who has not won a race since 2021, was third in the first run and sixth in the second.
“I had a fantastic day in general, I really enjoyed driving today,” he said.
“I want to say a very big thank you to everyone at the plant because building, designing and developing a car is not an easy thing and everyone has put so much time, so many hours of hard work that we are here today.”
“I’m glad we were able to keep it on track for them and I think we got a lot of data. It’s not the right place to ultimately test an upgrade, but overall the car felt good.”
Hamilton said he could feel the improvements and that Mercedes just had to keep “plugging in” to get more performance out of the car.
Mercedes sit third in the F1 Championship but well behind champions Red Bull, who have won every race this year and recorded a double in four of the five races.
Team-mate George Russell agreed that any real analysis of the upgrade would have to wait until after next week’s Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.
“Monaco is such a unique track that it’s not really the place to review any updates or changes and we knew the weekend was coming so we’re almost forgetting about the upgrades,” said the Briton.
“We’re going to think about that next weekend and just focus on improving here.
“There are definitely some positive signs from the (second) session which is definitely an improvement on FP1,” added Russell, who finished 15th and 12th.
Additional coverage from Reuters.
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/formula-one/f1-monaco-grand-prix-2023-lewis-hamilton-practice-b1084093.html Monaco Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton encouraged by upgrade package after ‘amazing’ practice run
