07/07/2018
NEWS STORY
Participating in his 218th Grand Prix weekend, it came as some surprise during free practice yesterday to hear Lewis Hamilton declare the newly resurfaced track the bumpiest he has ever driven on.
Subsequently asked about the first day of a weekend which could see him secure his sixth British Grand Prix win, the Briton told reporters: "Do you want the good or the bad?
"The good is that the weather is fantastic and the crowd is amazing," he continued. "It has a fantastic atmosphere and great fun to drive on this track because it's so fast... the fastest it has ever been.
"We're flat out through Copse, through Turn 1, through Turn 2 with the DRS and its insane how fast it is.
"It is the best track in the world, the faster it gets, the better it gets. It's got to be the best track in the world, it's really ridiculous... it's like flying a fighter jet around the track.
"The bad is that, one, I always think countries seem to waste money when they resurface the tracks," he said. "They wasted money which they could have gone to better use. And, two, the people they hired did the worst job ever.
"I mean, it's the bumpiest track I've ever experienced, it's bumpier than the Nordschleife, which is a hundred years old. It's rattling your freakin' eyeballs from your brain... you can't see where you're going.
"On the straights and some of the corners it's insane how bumpy it is. It's so quick its like duh-duh-duh-duh!
"I said to the team, 'I'm not going to talk on the radio because people will think I'm taking something or taking the mick', you know.
"Apart from that it's fantastic, but jeez they need to hire someone better, because I don't know how you could make such a bad job in layering the track."
The world champion was also critical of the decision to allow DRS use through T1, a move which saw Romain Grosjean come to grief, with Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen revealing that he almost had a similar crash.
Asked if it was tricky, thee Briton told reporters: "It's not tricky, no. It's kind of a pointless exercise, and kind of just dangerous.
"We used to have DRS everywhere and we had to engage it and take off, and they stopped us from doing that because people were spinning off.
"I remember yesterday, when we did the brief, I was like, 'Ron, you should tell Charlie, someone's going to crash'," he revealed, referring to Mercedes team manager Ron Meadows. "Because the speeds we go into Turn 1 are insane. And what happened today? I was like, 'told you!'.
"It's not really necessary to have it through there," he insisted. "I mean, we're all managing, but if someone sticks in qualifying, they're going to crash, so that's kind of why it's an unnecessary kind of danger."
Sebastian Vettel had previously suggested that DRS at Turn 1 would further increase the gap between the big teams and their rivals, claiming that the better down force available to the better funder teams would allow the drivers for those teams to take the corner with more confidence (and downforce).
Check out our Saturday gallery from Silverstone, here.