Hamilton Concedes To Mercedes's Lack Of Pace: 'We Just Have To Accept It'
F1Saturday, 04 May 2024 at 17:00
Lewis Hamilton shared his disappointment after a double SQ2 knockout for Mercedes during the Sprint qualifying at Miami International Autodrome.
The Mercedes F1 team previously teased upgrades they planned to introduce during the 2024 Miami Grand Prix weekend. These upgrades were suggested to have the potential to fix some of their cars' underlying issues.
However, as it turns out, after Friday's Sprint Qualifying, the German team seems to have made a step back, if anything. Both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell didn't even make it into the last part of Sprint Qualifying.
The 39-year-old blamed experimenting with the setup of his car for the underwhelming performances in some of the previous weekends, but he suggested that wasn't the case this time around as he told the media:
"There have been no more experiments, it's just been trying to make the car work. I feel like we extracted everything from the car, and that is just the pace. We just have to accept it that for the moment, it was seven-tenths off."
Hamilton seemed really disappointed as he suggested there was nothing or no one else to blame but the pure pace of his W15.
"I felt really good in FP1, and then in [sprint qualifying], it didn't feel terrible, it is just that we are seven-tenths off. That's just the pace of our car."
Russell finished P11, while the seven-time World Champion took P12. They will now start the Sprint race from the sixth line on the grid, with the challenging task of making it into the top 8 to bring home at least some points.
"I think the sprint race is going to be tough, I mean we are in 12th, so I don't expect a huge amount from there to be honest - it is not an easy circuit to overtake on or follow, so we will just try to step into the points if we can."
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