The seven-time champion endured a shocking exit in Q2 at Zandvoort
It just was not Lewis Hamilton’s day Saturday.
And the Mercedes driver was the first to admit that after a difficult qualifying session that saw him fail to advance to Q3, putting him in line to start 13th in the Dutch Grand Prix.
“It wasn’t my day today,” bemoaned the Mercedes driver following qualifying, in the team’s media report.
Hamilton pointed to a lack of confidence in the W14 as one of the reasons for his struggles in qualifying.
“Since FP1, I’ve lost some confidence in the car and that made qualifying tricky,” added the Mercedes driver. “It was tough to get the tyres into the working window, I struggled with the balance and overall grip, and George [Russell] also did a few different settings that seemed to work better.”
Team Principal Toto Wolff concurred with Hamilton’s assessment regarding confidence.
“For Lewis, it seemed like he was impeded on every timed lap - including his quickest one - but he also didn’t have full confidence in the car today,” said the Mercedes boss.
Andrew Shovlin, the team’s Trackside Engineering Director, outlined how Hamilton struggled with tyre temperatures as well as balance on his W14. “We were struggling for temperature on intermediate tyres in the morning session, George managed to get on top of this, but Lewis was not particularly happy with his balance and finding it hard to build heat in the tyres,” stated Shovlin. “Those trends continued into qualifying although Lewis was particularly unfortunate with the number of cars blocking him on fast laps; ultimately it was the lack of a clear lap that prevented him making the final session.”
All is not lost for Mercedes, as Russell qualified in third, for his second-best qualifying run of the season and his second-best performance since back at the Australian Grand Prix. With Mercedes having a stated goal of locking down second place in the Constructors’ Championship during the second half of the season, having Russell up front should give them a chance to move closer to that goal Sunday.
It would be even better if they could manage to move Hamilton to the front with him.
“Tomorrow is a new challenge; hopefully the car will be a bit better on full tanks, and we can make some forward progress,” said Hamilton. “This isn’t an easy circuit for doing that - but that will be the goal.”
