Hamilton Waves Off Claims Of Mental Problems Potentially Impacting Qualifying Performance

Sunday, 20 October 2024 at 12:00

Mercedes Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton suggested the Saturday in Austin has felt terrible for him and discussed potential causes behind qualifying struggles.

Just like seven other F1 teams, Mercedes took the opportunity and introduced significant new upgrades for the sprint weekend in Austin.

In Sprint Qualifying, it looked very promising for the German team as Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were two of the fastest drivers on the track- although the 39-year-old ultimately qualified only in P7 due to yellow flags.

The problem was that as soon as the Sprint race started, it became clear that Hamilton didn't have the pace to match Ferrari, McLaren, and Red Bull.

Despite the fact that Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc fought each other for a couple of laps right ahead of Hamilton, he couldn't catch up with them for some reason. What was the reason? The seven-time World Champion told the media in Austin:

"[Today has] been pretty terrible. We had some sort of failure from the formation lap on the front suspension, and I had that throughout the sprint race, and that made the balance really difficult."

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Coming into the qualifying, Mercedes had the opportunity to make changes to Lewis Hamilton's car. However, that did not turn out well, as he was knocked out of qualifying for the Grand Prix already in Q1. He continued:

"We did change a couple of things, which was just in the direction of what we would have done yesterday, and the car was a nightmare today in quali. So, I think I should probably start in the pit lane because otherwise, I won't be going anywhere from there."

When the Mercedes driver was asked whether the poor qualifying result could be attributed to the performance of his car, or perhaps some mental problems developing, he replied:

I was about to qualify pole yesterday, so it’s not a mental problem. The suspension’s failing and not braking, and things aren’t coming together.

"Today, honestly, I can't explain – you'd have the team what happened with the suspension. But I know the guys are working as hard as they can [to fix it]."