A very deflated Lewis Hamilton has reflected on P9 in qualifying for the F1 Bahrain GP as his start to life in Saturday sessions at Scuderia Ferrari continues to be disappointing.
The final run was a disaster. He was 0.597s slower than teammate Charles Leclerc who qualified P3. Hamilton looked a step behind the other Ferrari throughout qualifying and it got even worse in the last segment. In fact, he ended up behind Carlos Sainz.
Asked in the print media zone to explain his qualifying, Hamilton gave a very short response.
“It was pretty straightforward, and yeah, not really much to say.”
Although Lewis Hamilton outqualified his Ferrari teammate in both F1 Chinese GP qualifying sessions, Charles Leclerc has held a clear advantage in Australia, Japan, and now Bahrain.
The 105-time race winner and seven-time World Champion admits he needs to step up his game.
“I’m just not doing a good enough on my side, so I’ve just got to keep improving.
“Yeah, clearly the car is good enough, which is good.
“It’s definitely not a good feeling, for sure.”
Regarding the issue at the back of the car at Suzuka, Hamilton confirmed that has all been fixed.
“Yeah, it’s been resolved.”
In Q3, Lewis Hamilton had his first time deleted. However, he did not feel it was particularly costly.
“It didn’t help, but it wasn’t the worst case scenario.”
On his hopes for tomorrow, Hamilton is hoping to make up four spots and get inside the top 5.
“Hopefully top five. I’ll try and see if I can get into top five, we’ll see.”
To round off his short print media zone chat, Lewis Hamilton could not give any explanation regarding how he tackles the issues from here considering his qualifying struggles at Mercedes last year and Ferrari this season so far.
“I really don’t know, I really don’t know. I don’t have a lot of answers for you guys, I just wasn’t quick today.”
