Lewis Hamilton hopes George Russell can take on more Mercedes ‘experiments’

Hamilton claimed his second podium of the season at the Canadian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton hopes to see Mercedes make fewer “experiments” with their car ahead of the British Grand Prix, with team-mate George Russell taking on more of a share over the remainder of the season.

The seven-time world champion claimed just his second podium finish of the season at the Canadian Grand Prix last weekend but was left frustrated by the Mercedes W13 car during practice.

Hamilton called the Mercedes “undrivable” and insisted their problems with ‘porpoising’ and ‘bouncing’ were “only getting worse” the more the team tinkered with the set-up of the W13.

Mercedes were eventually able to put Hamilton into position to finish third in Montreal, behind race winner Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, and the 37-year-old hopes the team have learned their lessons ahead of Silverstone.

“Maybe in the second half of the season George can do the experiments!” Hamilton told reporters on Sunday. “We’re just trying to work… we’re just trying to progress as a team.

“And yeah, I think moving forward, I think we’ll be a little bit more cautious on doing too many experiments as it really does hinder you through the weekend, especially if you only have practice one and two in the dry and don’t get a FP3, for example.

“So yeah, I think there’s lots of learnings from this weekend, and improvements that we can make moving forwards. But you know, really great pace today. And it’s so nice to see, it’s not always been the case I’ve had with this car so it’s nice to have a bit of a good battle with her today, her or him, whatever you call a car.

“And I really hope, moving to Silverstone… it’s such an important race for us and for me and so I really hope that… I just want to be in a battle with these guys [Red Bull and Ferrari].

“At the end there when the Safety Car came in and we started again, I was hoping that I could just… the dream was like if I can keep in that battle with them and find a way but they were rapid. But we will get there eventually.”