From pain to podium: How Mercedes changes saved Lewis Hamilton

Canadian Grand Prix

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From pain to podium: How Mercedes changes saved Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton said the W13 was worse than ever on Friday

Ewan Gale

Sunday 19 June 2022 23:25 Updated: 23:33

Lewis Hamilton has revealed the "drastic changes" made by his Mercedes team led to a Canadian Grand Prix podium after being led down a "dreadful" avenue early in the weekend.

The seven-time world champion secured only his second top-three finish of the season in Montréal, having qualified fourth during a wet Saturday session.

Hamilton complained the W13 had been worse than ever on Friday after experimenting with set-up during the first two practice sessions. Explaining how his weekend was turned around, he revealed: "We tried two different avenues [in practice] and the avenue I was down was dreadful.

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"We collated all the data we had and we made drastic changes to the set-up and it was much much nicer today, more in line with what we anticipated.

"It was good, when you get a full race distance in you find a lot of things out about the car and the relationship you have with the car, and data etcetera.

"So there is a lot to take from today and one really great thing is we have got really good reliability which is a tribute to the great work all the team are doing at both factories."

Hamilton hoping for home improvement

F1 returns to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix next time out, with the medium-to-high-speed track layout perhaps playing more into Mercedes' hands.

Yet the bouncing issues that have plagued the Silver Arrows could re-emerge and Hamilton insisted: "We have got to keep our heads down, keep working.

"I know where I am losing to these guys, that is where I am going to focus on attacking, to improve.

"I think we are better in the medium and high-speed corners than we are in the low-speed, but we have bouncing so I don't know how it is going to be through Copse.

"It will be interesting for us there but really excited to get back to the UK. The weather is incredible right now and hopefully, it is the same next week."