F1 News: Lewis Hamilton Gains Insight on Red Bull's Performance During Austin Sprint Race

Hamilton downloaded the information for Mercedes.

Lewis Hamilton revealed that he got the opportunity to closely observe and study Red Bull's RB19 F1 car during the Sprint race in Austin while chasing Max Verstappen before the race leader disappeared into the horizon. 

Mercedes brought a new floor upgrade to its W14 F1 car this weekend which was well received by the seven-time world champion. But he also stressed that there was a long way to go before the team turn the car into a potent title contender. 

The British driver overtook Charles Leclerc initially and was well within Verstappen's DRS range for a few laps. Though he was focused on his own driving, he was also able to examine how Red Bull's machinery behaved on different sections of the track. The information gathered will be shared with Mercedes for further development. 

Speaking to the media, he said:

“I didn’t get that great a start, but obviously quite aggressive Turn 1 and had a good battle with Charles, but then after that the car was feeling pretty good, so I was just attacking from the get go trying to get as close as I could whilst the car felt like that.

"I just couldn’t bridge the gap enough to Max and then, once I was out of his DRS, then he just started eking away and cruising.

"Not that I haven’t seen it already this year, we have seen it obviously, but it was a good position to be able to watch what the Red Bull car, what Max’s car was doing, how it was behaving.

"So I got to watch for a while and see where they are particularly strong, which we can obviously see that on GPS or something like that, but still, at least I know where we are if there is anywhere we’re stronger and where we’re weaker, so I can download that to my team.

"And at the end, I think everyone’s tyres were struggling towards the end of that stint.”

When he was asked about the details of the 'download,' he refused to give them out but revealed that Mercedes still had significant work left to do to catch Verstappen and Red Bull next year. 

When Verstappen and Hamilton were seated next to each other, the Red Bull driver joked that Hamilton needed a memory stick to give back to Mercedes, to which Hamilton replied, "That’s what we need is a USB, I was trying to get close enough. But next time I’ll get one of those GoPro sticks!”

F1 News: Lewis Hamilton Predicts "Good Battle" For Austin GP After Sprint Race Podium

The 38-year-old concluded by saying that the team had a lot of work left to do on the car despite the recent upgrade and that he had full faith in his team to achieve the feat. He said:

“But [we learned] that we have a lot of work to do. Everyone behind these guys has a lot of work to do, and it’s no small feat for us to truly catch them for next year.

"They will be progressing at a steep rate as they’ve got an amazing development team, and to make it even steeper for us to be able to close that gap, but I’m going to put 100% faith in my team that we can do it.”