Mercedes explain what went wrong with Hamilton’s set-up in Baku

New rules and a new schedule were introduced for the F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, eliminating the usual practice session on a Saturday in favour of the ‘sprint shootout’.

Mercedes’ plan was to run Hamilton and George Russell’s cars with differing set-ups on Friday in advance of the sprint shootout but they were scuppered.

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Mike Elliott, chief technical officer, explained: “You’ve only got one one-hour session of FP1 to get the car right. 

“And that’s on a circuit that has been resurfaced. So how the tyres are going to work and interact with that surface is different to what we might have expected.

“We turned up having a set-up we were going to try with Lewis and a set-up we were going to try with George.

“What happened to us is; we had an issue with Lewis’ car getting it out of the garage on time, because of a parameter in the car.

“And as a consequence of that it made it very difficult to compare those two set-ups.

“I think in hindsight, we’re still not convinced of whether we made the right choice or didn’t make the right choice.

“It’s the same for everybody. Everybody has got that same format to deal with, everybody has got that same challenge of one hour to deal with.”

Hamilton finished sixth in the Baku grand prix, Russell eighth.

They described their weekend as a step forwards and will hope to make further strides at this weekend’s F1 Miami Grand Prix.