‘Praying that everything’s okay’ – Hamilton reflects on ‘really unfortunate’ FP2 stoppage in Mexico

Lewis Hamilton has admitted that Ferrari are “still investigating” exactly what went wrong with his car in FP2 at the Mexico City Grand Prix, with the Briton “praying that everything’s okay”.

As the only team not to run a rookie during the first hour of practice, Ferrari put their challenger to the test in different ways, including fitting an aero rake to Hamilton’s SF-26 before he embarked on his representative laps.

He ultimately finished fourth behind leader Charles Leclerc and the Mercedes pair of Kimi Antonelli and Fred Vesti, but any hope of finding more time later in the day was disrupted when he was ordered to stop the car after suffering a power-related issue.

Asked how he felt before the stoppage, which restricted him to P11 on the timesheets, Hamilton said: “I was feeling really good in the car – it’s just my luck. I think we did a really good job in getting the set-up in a better place. Just really unfortunate.

“I think we’re really competitive this weekend as a team. I didn’t get to do the long runs so I have no idea, but I know it’s really hard to overtake here, as you saw with some people out there. They’re still investigating to find out what was wrong, and just praying that everything’s okay.

“I missed a little bit of time in FP1 because we did the rake running. Normally I would have one of the young drivers do FP1 at this track like most people did, but I opted to do it somewhere else.

“Basically I’ve only really had one session because I missed at least half of that session. I don’t think we need to make many changes to the set-up. I’d probably leave it much the same because we were very quick.

“I think I already had a loss of power earlier on in the lap and was still quick. I’ll give it everything tomorrow and just try to do the best with whatever I have.”

Team Principal Fred Vasseur explained on Friday that the team will “take a decision tonight” on what needs to be done to fix Hamilton’s car before FP3 and Qualifying, but was satisfied overall with Ferrari’s showing.

Although Leclerc topped both sessions, his advantage reduced from nearly seven-tenths to 0.103s, leaving the team acutely aware of the close competition at Mexico City’s unique circuit.

“It's very early stages,” Vasseur said. “You know that Mexico is a challenge – it is a challenge with the altitude and for the car, for the drivers to find the limit.

“It is like it is – it's the same for everybody and we have to do a lot of work tonight to improve the situation.

“The pace was there from this morning. From the first lap the pace was there on the long stint, on one lap, and it means that we have to finetune. We still have a lot of work to do on the set-up and on the car because it's quite extreme conditions.

“You know that each weekend the competition is mega tight. Last year you had half a tenth between P2 and P6 and you can move from hero to zero. Let's be focused on ourselves, don't think about classification and try to do the best from what we have.”