Lewis Hamilton reveals the reason for the disastrous USGP weekend

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton suspects the team’s revamping at the US Grand Prix led to his disastrous weekend at the Circuit of the Americas. The seven-time world champion faced disqualification issues during both the sprint race and qualifying on Saturday. His problems continued in Sunday’s Grand Prix, where he crashed hard into the gravel at Turn 19 on lap three.

Hamilton faced a turbulent weekend in Austin as Mercedes’ inconsistent performance once again left both drivers and team baffled. His bid to recover in Saturday’s sprint race was ruined by an early disqualification issue that compromised the balance of his W15. Adding to the disappointment, Hamilton’s struggles continued into the main qualifying session, where he failed to progress beyond Q1 and finished a disappointing 19th.

However, he started 17th on the grid due to Liam Lawson’s grid penalty and his teammate George Russell’s pitlane start. Hamilton made an impressive start, rising to 12th place by the end of the first lap. Unfortunately, his progress was soon derailed by a spin that ended his race, coincidentally at the same corner where Russell had spun the day before and crashed into the barriers.

The 39-year-old driver suspects the new updates have caused bouncing problems, completely throwing off the balance of his car. Speaking about the incident during the USGP, he told Motorsport.com:

“I had a great start, felt good and moved up to 12th place. It was the best first turn start I’ve had in a long time.

“At that moment I didn’t even insist; I was literally just trying to get going and get the tires up to temperature.

“The car started bouncing, the left front end started bouncing and the back end just turned around. It was the same as George yesterday.”

Hamilton was confident that the bouncing problem would have resurfaced later in the race if he had not spun. He added:

“If there had been no bouncing on that lap, I think it would have happened on the next lap because there was something wrong with the car.

“It was the same for most of the weekend with our new pack, so it was obviously disruptive. But it is what it is.”

The British driver then highlighted the similarities to Russell’s incident in qualifying, whose car performed better after he reverted to the old W15 specification for the Grand Prix. This led Hamilton to conclude that the modernization could lead to problems at COTA. He added:

“In P1 I had the same thing.

“I had a spin in Turn 3, which is so rare. In all the years I’ve been here, I’ve never spun into Turn 3.

“I was just saying that George apparently had the same problem yesterday, he went back to the old car and it looks good there, so maybe there’s something to the new upgrade.”

Asked whether Mercedes would switch to the old specification for the upcoming Mexican Grand Prix, Hamilton replied:

“We will investigate as best we can and after today we will get the data and see if we use the old or new specification next week.”