Lewis Hamilton endured a difficult second practice session at the Spanish Grand Prix on Friday, citing a downforce problem as the key issue behind his lowly 11th-place finish in FP2.
The Ferrari driver had shown promise in the earlier session, clocking in third, but failed to replicate that form under more representative afternoon conditions at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Hamilton has traditionally thrived at the Spanish venue – winning five consecutive races here between 2017 and 2021- but was visibly frustrated after a day that started well but deteriorated as conditions changed.
Hamilton Points to Downforce Problem
The seven-time world champion reflected candidly on a day that didn’t meet expectations, hinting that his SF-25 was not performing as it should due to a technical issue.
“Not fun. It’s a beautiful place. The weather has been amazing but no. Not a good day,” Hamilton admitted.
“I wouldn’t say I am motivating the team at the moment. Just keep your head down, keep working away. You can’t give up. You keep going, keep pushing. Keep trying to focus on solving the issues which we will try to do.
“You arrive on a Friday and you’re hoping for a good day, and it doesn’t go well but then you have a weekend in Monaco where all of a sudden the car feels great.
“I thought the car was going to be good today but it wasn’t too bad in P1. P2 was quite a lot worse.
“Naturally that’s frustrating for everyone. We had some problem which meant we were losing some downforce, so hopefully with that fix for tomorrow we’ll be in a better place.”
Hamilton’s time was nearly eight tenths off Oscar Piastri’s benchmark, leaving Ferrari with work to do overnight if they’re to be in the mix for qualifying on Saturday.
Vasseur Highlights Inconsistency and Track Conditions
Team principal Fred Vasseur echoed Hamilton’s sentiment that Ferrari’s pace had fluctuated throughout the day.
While Charles Leclerc managed to clock the fifth-best time in FP2, he too was over half a second adrift of the leader, with both drivers battling difficult track conditions and setup inconsistencies.
Read also: Rosberg suggests 'aging' Hamilton may have lost his edge“I think we had a very good pace this morning. We struggled a bit more in the afternoon,” Vasseur said. “I think we had a decent lap with Charles before the mistake on [Turn] 7, he was in advance on P1.
“But the target is to put it up together, not to do some good corners only. And then we struggled a bit more at the beginning of each stint on the long stint.
“I think it was true for us, but true for a couple of other cars. The track was very dirty with a lot of marbles as soon as we were out of the line. It was quite difficult to recover.
“Overall, it was a long day, we collected also good information. It was the first time that we were running the front wing. I think we’ll have a lot of work tonight.”
With downforce issues and an evolving track surface complicating Ferrari’s Friday, both Hamilton and the team will be aiming for a reset before Saturday’s crucial qualifying shootout.
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