Lewis Hamilton suspects the advantage Mercedes enjoyed in the first qualifying session of the season was due to the team’s exploitation of the rules on compression ratios.

The FIA has already announced two upcoming changes to the rules, the first of which will take effect after the seventh round of the season. But after seeing the true scale of Mercedes’ performance advantage for the first time, Hamilton wants the governing body to intervene.

“What’s clear is that they didn’t show the engine power through any of the practice [sessions] because there’s the whole talk of compression ratio,” Hamilton told Sky.

“They’ve obviously done a really solid job with their engine, which we have [done] as well, but it would be interesting to – I’m trying, I want to understand why it’s like two tenths or more, just through power, per sector, and so if it is a compression thing I want to understand why the FIA haven’t done anything and what’s being done to rectify it. But if it’s not […] then we have to do a better job.”

The FIA has imposed a maximum cylinder compression ratio of 16:1 for this season. However Mercedes’ engine is believed to exceed this limit when its engines reach operating temperatures.

At present the cylinders are measured at cool temperatures. The FIA will introduce an additional test at operating temperatures in June. From next year only the higher temperature test will apply.

It remains to be seen what effect the change might have on Mercedes. George Russell’s pole-winning lap today was almost eight tenths of a second quicker than the best time of any other driver.

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Hamilton’s session was compromised by a power unit problem which affected his car from Q2. His team mate Charles Leclerc claimed fourth on the grid.

“It was not the best qualifying, but I felt solid all weekend,” said Hamilton. “I’ve been really, really happy in the car and feeling super-motivated.

“Until the end of Q1, on the medium tyre, I was feeling great. I was obviously third or fourth with just the medium tyre. So it’s been solid and then when we got into Q2 we had some problems with the engine and deployment and it then threw a bunch of spanners in the mix and we really struggled then to just execute and get the best out of it after that.

“If things hadn’t been an issue I think we probably could have been fighting for third or fourth. So I don’t think we could get anywhere near Mercedes but still lots of progress to be made.”

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Keith Collantine

Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 – when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring journalist, Keith began running the site full-time in 2010, achieving a long-held ambition to dedicate his full attention to his passion for motor racing. View all posts by Keith Collantine