Mercedes confident it has resolved Hypersoft issues  

Lewis Hamilton believes Mercedes has found a fix for the problems it suffered with Formula 1’s Hypersoft tyre in Monaco heading into this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix. 

Mercedes struggled on Pirelli’s fastest-ever tyre as it made its debut during a grand prix weekend in Monte Carlo, with Hamilton stopping particularly early in the race in order to switch onto the Ultrasoft compound. 

The German manufacturer opted to bring the fewest sets of the pink-walled tyre to Montreal - with just five sets compared to the eight selected by the majority of the teams - as both drivers completed their Friday practice runs using only Supersofts and Ultrasofts. 

But despite not getting a feel for the Hypersofts in Canada, Hamilton is confident Mercedes has started its Canadian Grand Prix weekend on the right foot and does not feel the team will continue its struggles when it runs the tyre for the first time in FP3. 

“I think we’ve definitely understood it, but still we have to set it up, and we have to go with a certain spec,” Hamilton said. “Each tyre, certainly the Hyper, seems to require something different to the Ultra and the others. But we will see tomorrow.

“Ultimately we don’t have as many Hypersofts as everyone else. They have to select it quite far ahead, and from our test when the tyres didn’t last, that’s the information we got then. 

“Everyone else planned for different strategies. I think they’ve got eight sets and we’ve got four or five. So tomorrow hopefully we’ll get a good feel on it, and hopefully it’s not to dissimilar to what we had today.

"It’s not always that we start right out of the box, but I think we started right today.”

Hamilton ended FP1 just 0.088s off Max Verstappen’s leading despite being on Ultrasofts and continued as the faster of the two Mercedes drivers in second practice. 

Teammate Valtteri Bottas, who ended Friday fifth in FP1 and sixth in FP2, believes Mercedes will be “there or thereabouts” with rivals Red Bull and Ferrari once it switches onto Hypersofts ahead of qualifying.

“I think it was a good day even though it doesn’t look that good on the timesheets for us,” the Finn said. “I think we have learned from Monaco - if we could go there again I think we would get more out of the Hypersofts. For a single lap it shouldn’t be an issue to get them to work but we will find out tomorrow. 

“We are there or thereabouts. For sure the competitors have an advantage on the new engine. It’s a small difference, but I think it’s going to be a close qualifying tomorrow.”