Lewis Hamilton has explained how his Mercedes car transformed over the course of a race weekend in Canada that saw him return to the podium places. The seven-time World Champion complained that his W13 was "only getting worse" following a nightmare Friday that had the 37-year-old writing off his 2022 car. Hamilton complained that his overly stiff car was "undriveable" and the worst he had ever driven around Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Yet on Sunday, he was able to keep pace with his rivals and, following a late-race Safety Car, found himself briefly in the fight for a race win. "The balance I had on Friday was neutral, super positive, so no rear end," he has told RacingNews365.com . "And as soon as you applied one degree of turning, the rear end came around. "I was just fighting that constantly and it was very difficult to keep it out of the wall. That's why I didn't finish my long run because it was just undriveable in that set-up. "We tried two different avenues and the avenue I went down was dreadful. We collated all the data we had and we made drastic changes to the set-up, and it was much, much, much nicer. It was more in line with what we anticipated. "I had a little, nice amount of understeer with better traction, not having those snaps. It was a night and day difference."
Mercedes and Hamilton motivated by Canada result
Sunday's result has re-energised Hamilton and his team, with the Briton now claiming that there is great potential stored away in their problematic car. "It feels great today to be in amongst the battle. And for a second at the end there, I was just about keeping up with these guys until they pulled away at the end," he said. "It gave me and the team a lot of hope. I think that there's more to come from this car, the potential is truly there if we can get the set-up right. "I think that's been the most difficult thing this year, really trying to optimise the window for this car is much, much smaller than any other car we've experienced. "I've not been on the podium for a long time so, especially as I had my first win here 15 years ago, to be back up there and getting to experience the energy from the crowd was very reminiscent of that first year here. I'm so so happy with it."
Hamilton: I know where I'm losing time
Hamilton moved to warn his rivals that he knows where the team must improve next to close the gap between Mercedes and the Ferrari and Red Bull cars at the front. "It's good when you get a full race distance and you find a lot of things out about the car, and the relationship you have with the car, and data etcetera, so there's a lot to take from today," he continued. "One really great thing is that we've got really good reliability, which I think is a real tribute to all the great work all the team are doing they're both factories. "We've just got to keep our heads down and keep working." He added: "I know where they're where I'm losing to these guys so that's where I'm gonna go and try and focus on attacking to improve."
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