Lewis Hamilton may have delivered one of Mercedes’s best results of this year earlier today in the Sprint race. However, the seven-time world champion couldn’t repeat yesterday’s sprint qualifying success in the main qualifying session and rather settled for an embarrassing P18 for the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday. Furthermore, this marks Hamilton’s first Q1 exit this year and also the second time he has failed to make it into Q3 in 2024.
That’s the flag on Quali 🏁 P8 for George and P18 for Lewis on the grid for tomorrow’s Chinese GP pic.twitter.com/56WVUfsiVn
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) April 20, 2024
Meanwhile, his own teammate, George Russell secured a reasonable P8. Therefore, with the Chinese GP, Russell has defeated Hamilton four out of five times in qualifying this season. And by the looks of it, there are more displeasing stats to uncover for Hamilton before his extravagant move to Ferrari next season. Amidst such a demoralizing qualifying outing, Hamilton admitted that he wasn’t expecting such a poor result.
The Briton rated his own performance as “very bad” but is looking to turn things around on Sunday with a race for the top 10. Here’s what Hamilton had to say about his poor qualifying result in Shanghai.
Lewis Hamilton blames himself for the poor qualifying show
Hamilton admitted that the set up changes ahead of qualifying proved to be extremely damaging to his car’s overall pace. “I’ll give it my best shot. 18 is pretty bad. When I was making the set up changes I was like ‘It can’t get any worse, surely!’ and it did,” the Mercedes driver told the media.
Me losing my mind, pulling my hairs out.
Lewis kiking and giggling 😭😭 https://t.co/iM46ZnHOZ7 pic.twitter.com/TT6wHZG96b— deni (@fiagirly) April 20, 2024
“I should’ve gotten through easy. It was my mistake. I struggled, I couldn’t get the car to stop in turn 14, the thing just kept locking. Needed one more lap. The car is massively different, we changed a lot. I hope it rains tomorrow now, I need the rain so the rain dance. I need everyone to do it!”
Overall, Hamilton is now seeking help from the rain gods for a positive end to the Chinese Grand Prix. But, will rain make an appearance tomorrow, or is Hamilton bracing himself for his worst race result of this year?
Sara Chavan