"One of the worst sessions I've had for a long time" - Lewis Hamilton laments another disappointing day in F1 Australian GP

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton claimed that Friday's FP2 session at the 2024 F1 Australian Grand Prix was "one of the worst sessions" in a long time for him as he finished P18.

Hamilton looked rusty throughout the session as he failed to set a clean lap and had several off-track excursions. He even damaged the wheel-borough and some parts of the floor on one of his laps which forced him to return to the pits.

The Briton could not make an impression on either qualifying runs on the soft tires or the long runs at the end of FP2. Speaking to F1.com, Lewis Hamilton mentioned that he felt better within the W15 in FP1 but the balance of the car went away from him.

“I obviously don’t feel great," Hamilton said. "We had one of the worst sessions I’ve probably had for a long time. P1 generally felt quite good; the car actually in P1, run one, felt the best it’s ever felt, then it just got worse and worse. I made some changes, big changes into… well, we made some big changes into P2, and it was tough.

“After that session, I feel the least confident I’ve ever felt with this car, but there are positives from that P1 run that we did.”

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Lewis Hamilton gives his take on the W15 after the first two rounds

Heading into the Australian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton was complimentary of the W15 as he stated that the car wasn't an 'evil sister' to the previous two iterations.

As per F1.com, the Mercedes driver accepted that they as a team had made mistakes that were reflective of their results in the first two races. He said:

“It’s definitely not the evil sister or anything like that. I think we have an amazing car and there’s a lot of potential in it, and I think we just haven’t maximized it through set-up and through, ultimately, mistakes."

The seven-time world champion pointed out that the team wasn't happy with the performance of the W15 in Bahrain and Jeddah.

“We were obviously not happy with the performance of those first couple of races but I think there’s a lot more potential in it that we haven’t quite extracted yet," he added.

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes would hope that they iron out the issues that plagued them throughout the FP2 session and make a step forward in the final practice session before the all-important qualifying on Saturday.