Lewis Hamilton has said his car is ‘a disaster’ and admitted Mercedes will unlikely make any substantial strides of improvement for the rest of the season.
Speaking to Sky sports after getting a first taste of Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for the first time in three years he said: “Nothing we do to this car generally seems to work.
“We are trying different set-ups. Me and George went with much different set-ups in this P2 just to see if one way works and one-way doesn’t.
“I’ll wait to hear how it felt for him, but for me, it was a disaster. It’s like the car is getting worse, it’s getting more and more unhappy the more we do to it.
“We will keep working on it. It is what it is. I think this is the car for the year. We will have to tough it out and work hard on building a better car for next year.”
As for the race this weekend, Hamilton said he does not foresee the car being able to challenge Red Bull or Ferrari and said the vital kerbs are virtually impossible to take advantage of in a ‘stiff’ W13.
“One touch of the kerb and the thing goes flying, it’s so stiff,” he explained.
“Here you need to be able to use the kerbs, so it’s very tricky. It’s not the Montreal that I know, am used to and have experienced through my career. It’s the worst I’ve ever felt in a car here.
“I’m hoping overnight we can try and make some changes, but it’s the fundamentals of the car. It is what it is and it’s going to be a struggle.
“It’s a monumental fight the whole time to keep it out of the wall. When it bounces, the car leaves the ground a lot, and when it lands it grips up and goes in different directions.
“You are just trying to catch a car that jumps, hops and grips. It’s tough. It just keeps you on edge and there were some big hits today. We’ve raised the car and it doesn’t make a difference.
“We have tried loads and loads of things and ticked them all off. Those ones don’t work, so we have to go and find something else.
“We are way off, but it’s to be expected with this car.”
