Lewis Hamilton has said the new F1 cars “feel” slower than F2 machinery, despite insisting they are “a more fun car to drive” than the previous generation.<\/p>\n
The seven-time F1 drivers’ champion’s feelings towards the contemporary ground effects cars are well documented, and he has been generally complimentary of the new regulations so far.<\/p>\n
However, he was quick to highlight that they are slower than those raced between 2022 and 2025.<\/p>\n
Whilst correct, the Ferrari driver erronously claimed they were slower than F2 cars. Last season, the pole time in the senior-most support category was 1:44.08.<\/p>\n
On the first morning of running at the Bahrain International Circuit, Max Verstappen set a session-best time of 1:35.433.<\/p>\n
Hamilton ended the four-hour stint fourth fastest, exactly one second slower than the Red Bull driver.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the new cars, the 41-year-old told media, including RacingNews365: “It’s a lot less downforce.<\/p>\n
“The car is shorter, it’s lighter, and it’s actually easier to catch,” he added, having also had a spin during his time in the SF-26.<\/p>\n
“It’s quite fun, it’s like rallying a lot. Yeah, I think we’re slower than GP2 [F2], right now, right? I mean, it does feel like that.”<\/p>\n
Hamilton explained that the car felt worse in Sakhir than it had during the private shakedown at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.<\/p>\n
“Barcelona didn’t feel too bad,” he said. “Here [in Bahrain], it’s been very gusty, and it’s a lot hotter, so much harder to find the right balance. So I think everyone’s struggling.”<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tA car more suited to Hamilton’s driving style?<\/p>\n
When he was questioned on whether the new cars were more to his liking than the last era, the 105-time grand prix winner was keen to avoid taking a definitive stance at this stage of the year.<\/p>\n
“I think at the moment, it doesn’t feel anything like the genre before, and it’s really just far too early days,” he replied.<\/p>\n
“With the baseline car that we have, we’re still trying to test amongst the different things. We’re still trying to find the window that it likes to work in.<\/p>\n
“Haven’t optimised the tyres, haven’t optimised the aero package yet, the ride height, the mechanical balance, all these different things.<\/p>\n
“So, I’m not going to judge it just now. It didn’t feel great out there today with the wind. It is very, very gusty here \u2014 the gustiest I can remember it being here.<\/p>\n
“We’ll just have to take it with a pinch of salt. Plus, it’s the first day here [and] in the morning, it’s never fun.<\/p>\n
“But in general, as I said in the last test, it’s a more fun car to drive.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton has said the new F1 cars “feel” slower than F2 machinery, despite insisting they are “a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3007,3010,3008,3011,3009,831,372,49,832,3006,3005,50,3004,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-420596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","9":"tag-f1-calendar","10":"tag-f1-live","11":"tag-f1-results","12":"tag-f1-standings","13":"tag-ferrari","14":"tag-formula-1","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-lewis-hamilton","17":"tag-max-verstappen","18":"tag-motorsport","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-racing","21":"tag-top-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topnews","24":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}