Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton shared his thoughts on the performance of the W15 F1 car following Friday's FP2. He noted that the car's "long-run pace looks promising" and expressed confidence that Mercedes will be "in the mix" with strong competitors like McLaren and Ferrari at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
With the seven-time world champion's move to Ferrari just one race away, he is eager to end his 12-season tenure with Mercedes on a high note, where he secured six Drivers' Championships. However, throughout the year, issues with the W15 car led to struggles on multiple race weekends. Despite these challenges, Hamilton is optimistic about the car's performance at the Yas Marina Circuit for the final race. Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after his P5 result in FP2, he said:
"It felt better today. It's not been such a bad day.
"Very surreal and I've just tried to be as present as I can be today and just be enjoying every moment from arriving to seeing the engineers and just really like taking moments and capturing them as much as I can.
"Then to getting ready and getting in the car... and I've really enjoyed the day. I've really enjoyed driving the car today, working with the guys in the garage and the engineers.
"We've got some work to do. The McLaren is still so fast, as is Ferrari. We're in the mix, kind of, but we've got to find some time.
"It's never that easy to determine, but I think our long run pace didn't look too bad today, so that's I would say the big positive from today - I was a lot closer to the McLarens. On a single lap I think we've got some work to do."
The 39-year-old driver is facing an emotional race weekend ahead and admitted that he was trying to keep his emotions controlled in the best possible manner. He added:
"There's no trick to it, I'm trying to keep my emotions under control as much as I can.
"I said [on Thursday], I've not been great at it this year, I've definitely been very up and down - that's human emotion, that's normal - but I'm just really trying to channel it into the car, into the squad, the team. I've so much love for the team and I've been wanting to do well for them for ages, but one last go at it.
"I won't change too much in the car tonight and hopefully [in qualifying] we'll be there or thereabouts."
