Simply hours after Hamilton had delivered his finest results of the season as far as he completed second within the Shanghai dash, he got here crashing again to earth as he didn’t make it out of the primary session of qualifying.
Having braked too deep at Flip 14 due to the tailwind, Hamilton misplaced essential time and was knocked out as he ended up 18th on the grid.
Reflecting on what occurred, he mentioned the error was right down to him fairly than there being something mistaken with the automotive.
“I do not blame something on the staff,” he mentioned. “I believe not my finest qualifying laps.”
However whereas the rollercoaster of feelings from the highs of the morning to the lows of the afternoon was not straightforward to understand, Hamilton mentioned it was nothing to be too apprehensive about.
“Shit occurs ,” he mentioned. “Generally you get it proper, typically you do not. This automotive is on a knife edge, as we all know, so it may simply do what we have had. However I am going to have some enjoyable from there.”
Reflecting on the progress of his W15 this weekend, Hamilton mentioned that the staff had elected to do one thing daring when parc ferme opened after the dash – though it appeared to haven’t paid off.
“We made huge adjustments going into qualifying,” he mentioned. “We simply needed to experiment. So George [Russell] determined to go a technique, a lot totally different to what we had as a result of we labored just about with the identical earlier than.
Picture by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
“Then I went this different path simply to see if we are able to discover one thing. It did not really feel horrible. I simply could not cease the automotive in Flip 14.”
Russell performed down the variations between the automobiles, nevertheless, though he mentioned the step from the dash had been fairly dramatic.
“We’re fairly comparable on set-ups, and we each went in an analogous path,” he defined. “There was a small distinction however directionally very comparable between the 2 of us.
“We each made large adjustments from the dash race. And that’s: if we optimise every little thing this weekend, perhaps we might have completed P3, P4, P5, in qualifying. However we nonetheless would not be content material with that.
“We need to combat for victories and championships, hopefully, the minimal subsequent yr, and typically you’ll want to sacrifice within the quick time period to make some higher positive factors down the road.
“We’re nonetheless looking for the event path we have to be on to make some large steps. And that is simply the place we’re in the intervening time.”
Russell made it by way of to Q3 and ended up eighth on the grid, having lamented needing to make use of an additional set of tyres in Q2 on account of Carlos Sainz’s crash.
“It was a little bit of a disgrace, Q2, as a result of my first lap was robust sufficient for P3 till the final nook when Carlos introduced the pink.
“Then you’ll want to use one other set of tyres, after which [you have] just one set in Q3. On the finish of the day, that is the place we’re in the intervening time as a staff.
“Should you nail it, you may be on the entrance of that group. Should you’re on the again foot, you may be in the back of that group. And that is what we discovered ourselves throughout the final couple of races.”