- US GP - Qualifying
Brakes a race concern for Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton is worried the brake issues which contributed to him being beaten to pole position by Nico Rosberg will continue into the United States Grand Prix on Sunday.
Hamilton topped all three practice sessions in Austin and was fastest in Q1, but had been repeatedly complaining that his car was locking up regardless of the speed he was taking into corners. His struggles with the car coincided with Rosberg finding some extra time in Q2 and Q3 and Hamilton was eventually three tenths off his title rival's pole time, with the 2008 champion worried about the problems continuing in Sunday's race.
"Yeah, absolutely," Hamilton said when asked if qualifying had been a struggle from Q2 onwards. "Obviously Nico a great job today. I really struggled with braking. When you look at the brake temperatures, the left brake was always about 100 degrees less than the right front brake and it just kept catching. No matter what I did, even if I braked earlier and tried to save it, it would still lock. That was perhaps where I was losing a lot of the time but even if that wasn't the case I think Nico was perhaps too quick today."
When it was put to him it could be a problem for the race, Hamilton said: "Potentially, yeah, so I need to see if they can maybe scrub them down or something and try and fix it. All they can really do is sand it down so hopefully that works. The issue was just locking so if we can't fix that left brake then that will be a continuing issue throughout the race."
Paddy Lowe, Mercedes executive director (technical), says the team will investigate why the issue affected Hamilton and not Rosberg but suspects the pair's differing set-ups may be a cause.
"Lewis had a lot of problem with left-front locking all weekend. It's the nature of this circuit, particularly Turn 1, that's quite tricky. It may be some subtlety to do with the set-up of his car and he's finding it worse than Nico. There may be a minor issue; we need to look into why it was particularly bad this afternoon and why Nico isn't being affected."
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