Scuderia Ferrari Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton suffered a Q2 exit during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying session, a contrast to his third practice run on Friday, where he was fastest. He will start the race in P12 on Sunday.
The seven-time world champion admitted that while the car felt good yesterday, Ferrari chose a different “direction” with the SF-25 car for the qualifying run, which looked the “best” on paper but ended quite badly, especially for Ferrari as a team, given Charles Leclerc’s crash in Q3.
Hamilton also spoke about the team’s tire choice, stressing that not having medium tires at the end put him on the back foot in a chaotic qualifying session that featured many red and yellow flags.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after a Q2 exit, Hamilton said:
“I’m obviously so disappointed. Yesterday the car was feeling good, today there was a direction that we ended up going, which on paper looked like it was the best place for us to be, and ultimately it…
“Our pace had been good. We’d been progressing, I was feeling really on it, didn’t make any mistakes, didn’t see me down any exit roads. It was just that we didn’t have the right tire on at the end.
“It’s tough. Everyone ahead of me basically had the medium tire on, but I lost a medium tire in P2 due to run-plan schedule, and that put me on the back foot.”
Asked if he could have come in for a quick pit stop like Leclerc did, he said:
“Yeah, but the choice wasn’t taken to take it. I wanted to but they said that the warm-up was too long or something like that, so then we run out of time and run out of fuel. Not great, but we’ll take it internal.
“As I said, there’s been lots of positives from this weekend. I’ve really felt on it. I honestly thought I was going to be shooting for pole today, so it’s kind of a bit of a shock.
“I’ll take it on the chin and keep trying.”
Hamilton’s setback comes after a much-needed boost in the practice session, where he and Leclerc delivered a 1-2 finish. Newsweek Sports reported his comments after FP3:
“Thank the lord. It really has [been a positive day], thank the lord.
“It started out it wasn’t so positive. I’d say P1 was a bit of a mess. This is a circuit where you have to have mega confidence on the brakes, and I had some problems with the brakes.
“Every track I’m going to is the first time I’m driving the Ferrari at that circuit, so acclimatizing to that is not easy. Then we made some changes going into P2, and the brakes finally were working perfectly and I was able to make some quick, big advantage in terms of gaining on the brakes.”