Hamilton shares ‘gut’ feeling over Mercedes ‘question marks’

Lewis Hamilton has shared a “gut” feeling over the root of Mercedes’ recent struggles on the track.

The Brackley-based squad scored three race wins in the four races prior to the summer break and seemed to take a strong step forward after a challenging start to the season.

However, a difficult pair of races followed in the Netherlands and Italy as it was unable to compete for a podium result.

Hamilton has suggested the drop off in form is related to the major updates installed on the W15 challenger prior to the summer break.

“I think there’s lots of question marks on a lot of it,” Hamilton told media including RacingNews365. “I think we’re just trying to understand it.

“It could be a number of things. It could be track-dependent. It could be the upgrade – my gut is telling me that it’s probably the upgrade. It’s hard to see the difference between the two.”

Mercedes to ‘roll back’ – Hamilton

Hamilton confirmed Mercedes will attempt to get to the crux of the issue this weekend in Azerbaijan.

“But we’re going to try this weekend roll back on some of it and see whether or not we can spot it,” he said.

“There’s a lot of work going on just to analyse it, because it really gives the team a direction of where they’re going in development. 

“This is the car for next year as well.”