Lewis Hamilton sent a blunt two-word message to Mercedes after receiving information about Ferrari ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.
Hamilton endured a miserable evening in second practice on Friday as he finished down in 18th.
And speaking on the team radio, he expressed his concern in light of a comparison to Ferrari.
Charles Leclerc, who will be Hamilton’s teammate in 2025 when he joins the Scuderia, set the pace.
He was nearly four tenths clear of championship leader Max Verstappen atop the timings.
By contrast, Hamilton was the second-slowest of the 19th classified runners, with only Haas driver Kevin Magnussen below him.
The seven-time world champion had placed ninth in the opening session but was only two tenths off the pace.
In FP2, that gap ballooned to 1.5 seconds, leaving the 39-year-old and his team with significant work to do before qualifying on Saturday.
Lewis Hamilton in need of Mercedes fix
During the high-fuel runs in the closing stages of FP2, Hamilton asked his team what lap times his competitors were doing.
Engineer Peter Bonnington informed him that Leclerc had set a 1:22.8 on medium tyres on the previous lap.
That was enough for Hamilton to ascertain that there were problems with his car.
“Yeah, something’s wrong,” he replied.
Mercedes struggling in Melbourne
Hamilton’s teammate George Russell, who has out-qualified and out-raced the veteran at both races so far, enjoyed a better time of things in FP2.
He was sixth fastest, 12 places up on Hamilton, but the margin to the front still made for grim reading.
Russell’s 1:17.951 left him just under seven tenths of a second off Leclerc’s benchmark.
Mercedes are experimenting with the floor they ran in pre-season testing in the hope of improving the balance of their W15.
However, that didn’t appear to pay off on Friday as both drivers seemed to struggle with the balance of their car, particularly Hamilton.
Sky Sports F1’s Martin Brundle noted that it looked like ‘the most difficult’ to handle through the first couple of corners.
At previous weekends, the Silver Arrows have started strongly before falling backwards on qualifying day.
Hamilton led the way in FP2 in Bahrain but had to settle for ninth on the grid, while Russell took third.
Last time out in Saudi Arabia, the latter finished the first day of running second quickest behind Fernando Alonso before Mercedes locked out the fourth row.
They’ll hope that their weekend goes in the opposite direction on this occasion.
The post Lewis Hamilton sends blunt two-word message to Mercedes after what he heard about Ferrari appeared first on F1 Oversteer.