Lewis Hamilton has revealed he is continuing to struggle with braking issues on his Ferrari at Imola.
Enjoying a competitive first practice session, Hamilton was under a tenth of a second off Oscar’s Piastri’s session topping time in P5.
Hamilton entered second practice with the car in a good performance window but clearly struggled for grip and confidence on the brakes. He ended the session down in P11.
The seven-time world champion has been vocal in his struggles to adapt to Ferrari’s Brembo-manufactured brakes.
Speaking to the media after the session, Hamilton explained the underlying cause behind his brake issues.
“It’s not the transition, it’s the performance. It’s a lottery, we’ll roll the dice and you put one [pad] on and it works and put another on and it doesn’t. I hope tomorrow we figure something out, we’re working on it for sure.”
“I was really happy with the car in FP1, it felt like we’d made a step forward and was feeling really positive.”
Hamilton then revealed how fragile the operating window of his Ferrari is at present:
“I literally changed two of the tiniest things that shouldn’t have had barely any effect at all, the smallest change we’ve probably done this year and we had some brake issues that then made a massive difference so that was then a fight with that. That’s been quite a big issue all year actually.”
Charles Leclerc focusing on qualifying
After missing media day due to illness, team-mate Charles Leclerc also had a day of struggles at Imola. The Monegasques’ fortunes were the reverse of Hamilton’s enduring a difficult FP1 before enjoying a more competitive FP2.
His race runs gave hope that Ferrari could enjoy a competitive race on Sunday. But, with the colossal pressure of the Tifosi a constant companion at Imola, Leclerc attempted to dampen expectations ahead of qualifying.
“Our weak point at the moment is the Qualifying pace and we still need to work on that.
“To go and take pole, honestly I don’t think we’ve got it in the car for now but the race pace was strong so that’s positive.
Leclerc highlighted the unique characteristics of Imola, with its tight, twisting nature sometimes acting as a detriment to racing action.
“But [it’s] also a track where overtaking is very difficult, so we’ve got to focus on our qualifying pace, that’s where we are putting all our effort into.”
