Hamilton moves closer to Leclerc’s Ferrari F1 car set-up as Austrian GP pace hurt by brake woes

Lewis Hamilton’s weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix showed a hint of progress from the Ferrari team as Charles Leclerc finished on the podium and the seven-time champion finished fourth.

While there’s still a mountain to climb for the team and its drivers, this is Hamilton’s joint-best grand prix finish so far this season after a stellar performance in Imola saw the same result. 

But despite an uptick in pace from the Scuderia, the British driver’s performance was still compromised by brake issues. 

Speaking after the race, he explained the issues that cost him lap time: “We have brake issues, so I had to manage these brakes pretty early on, which was losing definitely some time. That’s something I’m really pushing to get fixed, because that’s not great.”

He has previously described his brakes as feeling “like a lottery,” with them being a source of frustration so far with the team.

“We roll the dice and you put one [set of brakes] on and it works and you put another on and it doesn’t,” he added.

Hamilton also admitted that he’s edging closer towards his team-mate’s set-up. While he’s not entirely comfortable with the levels of oversteer it produces, it seems to be bearing fruit.

“Set-up even closer to Charles, yeah,” he said. “He drives a massively oversteering car. Somehow slides the rear, so it doesn’t have degradation. When I slide the rear, I get massive degradation.

“It’s definitely something I think you have to get used to. Supposedly, it took Carlos a couple of years to get used to. I don’t want to do that.”

While this weekend has seen a substantial improvement from Hamilton, he’s still off Leclerc’s pace – something he’s particularly honest about: “Still losing massive ground. We lose eight seconds, nine seconds – compared to Charles.”

Despite this, he will leave Austria with a smile on his face as he heads to his home race next weekend at Silverstone. 

“I think we’ve moved forwards. The upgrade was quite small, so we didn’t really know. They didn’t even mention any time because it was that small. But I think perhaps it was a bigger result from putting the floor on. That’s the real positive,” he explained.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

“It’s pretty great to see the team bringing the upgrade. We’ve moved forwards. We’ve been the second fastest this weekend. Third and fourth is a real positive. There’s lots of good things to take from the weekend, and there’s lots of areas to focus on.

“Qualifying was better. We found a problem that I had in my last qualifying lap, which cost me a tenth. There was some issue on the car, so that’s again a positive result. But I would have gone backwards if I had started second. So I’ve got to find race pace, that’s key.”