Japanese GP qualifying: Lewis Hamilton says P8 start is ‘not good enough’
SUZUKA, Japan — Lewis Hamilton took the blame for his lacklustre qualifying performance at the Japanese Grand Prix, saying it was “not good enough.”
The seven-time champion qualified eighth at Suzuka on Saturday after setting a time 0.311 seconds slower than Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, who will start Sunday’s race in fourth place.
“Obviously not good enough from my side, P8 is not great,” Hamilton told Sky Sports. “But I was happy to get in Q3 obviously, had a really tight battle out there with everyone, just didn’t get very good laps in Q3.”
Hamilton was impeded by Carlos Sainz in Q2 on the approach to Turn 1, forcing the Ferrari driver across the kerb and off the circuit. Sainz was handed a three-place grid drop and starts 15th.
Hamilton has experienced mixed results in his first three race weekends with Ferrari, including winning the China sprint race but being disqualified from the full-length grand prix the following day.
His Ferrari was removed from the results after the plank on the underside of the car was found to have an illegal level of wear, which was a consequence of running the car too low to the ground.
Although the plank wear was only 0.5 millimetres beyond what is allowed in the regulations, Hamilton confirmed his car is running higher in Japan, and therefore sacrificing potential performance to avoid a repeat.
“We are running higher than we’d like, but everyone is in the same boat in that respect,” Hamilton added.
“Particularly obviously after the last race we are a bit higher than we wanna be — that’s usually he knock-on effect of the weekend like we had before. Charles did an amazing lap today.
“We went in different directions with the set up, we had a lot of understeer and couldn’t dial it out throughout qualifying.”
Hamilton hopes the forecast rain hits the track tomorrow during the race to improve his chances of making progress through the field.
“I’m excited, I generally love the rain. It’s going to be tricky but usually when you have a qualifying like I’ve just had, you hope for the rain.”
Source: espn.com