Lewis Hamilton admits his championship winning Mercedes W08 was a great car, but also a tough proposition when it came to exploiting its potential.
Mercedes conquered its fourth consecutive world title in 2017, inflicting another crushing defeat on arch-rival Ferrari, but it was anything but clear sailing for the Silver Arrows team.
The somewhat unpredictable nature of the manufacturer's W08 - labeled a 'diva car' by team boss Toto Wolff - complicated Mercedes and Hamilton's task, with the team often caught up in tyre temperature issues early on, before finally getting a firm grip on the beast's set-up after F1's summer break.
"This is the toughest one," Hamilton said of his W08 Silver Arrows, speaking to Motorsport.com.
"Some of the issues we’ve had have been with us for years and we are only just realising we need to really do something.
"New car, being on a wider scale magnifies the issue, I think. A different tyre dynamic, it has been the hardest in that respect.
"2008 [was] a difficult one too. 2009 was horrible. This is a great car, but it has been tricky getting it to work."
The four-time world champion underlined his need - and ability - to go beyond his comfort zone to get the most out of his unpredictable mount.
"Often to get that extra potential you have to overdrive a little bit, but it’s a fine balance of getting into that region," Hamilton added.
"This year people have talked about us having the best car, and for sure it’s been good, but there are some fundamental issues with the car that I’m fighting to overcome.
"I feel like in those moments, I’ve been able to extract more than it was willing to do and that’s been positive."
Hamilton believes his efforts and those of the team to understand the W08's complexities were what gave him an edge at the end of the day.
"Often if you go the wrong [set-up] direction you don’t even get to the car’s potential - the car just won’t allow you to squeeze out the extra bit," he says.
“Understanding the car has really allowed me to get the potential, and a little bit more, so even in the races where we’ve struggled we’ve come out with more than we’d hoped."
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