“It wasn't the best of sessions”: Lewis Hamilton claims Mercedes changes ‘didn’t work’ in FP 2

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton stated that he and the team fell backwards after the end of the FP2 session in Melbourne for the 2023 F1 Australian GP.

Hamilton started Friday on a strong note as he finished P2 behind Max Verstappen in FP1. However, in the rain-affected FP2 session, he mentioned that the changes made by the team to the car didn't work and they fell to P13.

Speaking to F1.com, he said:

“This morning was good; this afternoon wasn’t so good. It [the car] felt a little bit better this morning, [we] made some changes, but they didn’t work, so we’ll revise those tonight. Then it rained, obviously, so it wasn’t the best of sessions. You don’t really learn a huge amount when it’s between [conditions], so just keep the car safe.”

"We won’t be competing against the Red Bulls. It will just be about trying to see if we can get up as high as possible. I think we’ve got the pace to be around fifth [place] area, same as the last race.”

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“FP2 was obviously a little bit frustrating for everybody with the weather" - Lewis Hamilton's teammate

George Russell agreed with his teammate Lewis Hamilton and mentioned that the FP2 session was less than ideal for everyone because of the weather change.

He said:

“FP2 was obviously a little bit frustrating for everybody with the weather coming in a little bit surprisingly, but it was a reasonable session for us. We definitely made a step from FP1 which is a good thing. We made a lot of set-up changes over the break [between sessions]."

Russell added:

"We’ve been doing some good steps recently; we’ve been changing quite a few things and getting the car into a nice window as the weekend progresses, so that’s quite satisfying to sit in the driver’s seat knowing that the car feels better and as a team, we’ve contributed towards that."

"We need to see how that translates into tomorrow, but in FP1 I was not happy with the car and in FP2 I was pretty happy, so yeah, not too bad.”

It would be interesting to see if the weather plays a part in the qualifying session tomorrow as well and sets up a mixed-up grid for the main race on Sunday (April 2). George Russell currently looks happier than his teammate Lewis Hamilton going into the weekend and seems to be more comfortable with his Mercedes.