The Mercedes driver experienced a rollercoaster of a weekend, starting third in qualifying before falling to sixth due to a shoddy strategy—a move that Mercedes later described as a “clear mistake”
The team’s competitiveness has declined since winning three of the four races prior to the summer break, with Hamilton taking home wins in Belgium and Great Britain. However, a problematic floor upgrade has since been removed from the W15.
James Allison, the technical director of the team, has committed to a significant upgrade for Austin in anticipation of Hamilton’s final six races with the team before switching to Ferrari.
“We’ll be trying to figure out how to mitigate what ailed us [in Singapore], how to figure out how to make the tyres run better on these sorts of overheating circuits,” Allison added, elaborating on how Mercedes is presently closing the long deficit ahead of the United States Grand Prix in Austin.
“We’ll be also doing quite a lot of work to bring our last upgrade of the season together.”
Allison said, “We hope that will give us a decent weekend there,” adding that she had picked up “a fairly substantial set of new clothes” for the car in Austin.
In order to prepare for these final few races of the year, we must offer all of that.
“As we near the end of our journey with Lewis, nearly every weekend is a milestone that will never be again. “I hope that we won’t have to go too far beyond the 350th race.
Maybe we can celebrate the 351st in greater style in Austin.”
“It’s just a shame that [his 350th race] happened on a weekend where the car was not brighter.”