Hamilton Called Out By Danner: 'You Don't Always Need To Find Excuse'
F1Thursday, 25 April 2024 at 13:45
Former F1 driver Christian Danner discussed Lewis Hamilton's qualifying incident, which resulted in a Q1 knockout for the Mercedes driver.
The seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton destroyed his race already in qualifying as he got knocked out due to his own mistake in the penultimate corner.
The Mercedes driver would have been comfortably through to Q2, but he couldn't stop his W15 into turn number 14 (hairpin) and went very wide, losing more than half a second.
This was a very disappointing end to the qualifying session for the 39-year-old, especially after P2 in the Sprint Shootout and P2 in the Sprint race.
Discussing Hamilton's mistake for the Motorsport-magazin, Christian Danner suggested it's something that shouldn't happen to a driver like Hamilton on the final lap of the Q1 when everything is on the line.
"Misjudging the braking point in the hairpin at Shanghai is quite normal. It's happened to me too. But when it comes down to the wire in qualifying, then it's a big problem, and that's exactly what happened here."
The seven-time World Champion said after the qualifying that he experimented with the setup of his car, which helped him around some different parts of the track but made it very difficult to judge the braking point into turn number 14.
This turned out to be very difficult for multiple drivers, including the home hero Zhou Gunayu, who went wide exactly like Hamilton.
According to Autosport, the British driver also blamed tailwind for making it even harder to judge the breaking point, but Danner doesn't see this as a valid excuse.
"Nowadays, a driver gets all the information fed to him. That includes the wind. Braking late also has a bit to do with feeling."
"I think you don't always need to find an excuse, saying that the wind was pushing. Yes, well, as a driver, you still have to make sure you get around the corner. A driver of his caliber should be able to handle it. A mistake is still a mistake."
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