Lewis Hamilton experienced significant adjustments to his Mercedes vehicle ahead of the qualifying session for the Chinese Grand Prix. Mercedes hinted that these modifications might have played a role in the mistake that ultimately ended his qualifying run.
Hamilton elaborated on the alterations made to his car, describing them as “massive changes” that contributed to his early departure from the qualifying rounds at the Chinese Grand Prix.
The mishap occurred as the 39-year-old driver approached Turn 14, the hairpin located in the final sector of the Shanghai International Circuit. This error caused him to run wide and resulted in a loss of over half a second in lap time. Mercedes confirmed that these changes likely contributed to the incident.
As a consequence of this mishap, Hamilton found himself out of Q1, securing the 18th position for the upcoming grand prix on Sunday.
This setback comes after a promising performance in the sprint segment of the weekend, during which he secured a second-place qualification and led a sprint race for the first time in his career.
Notably, this marks Hamilton’s poorest qualifying result since the 2017 Brazilian Grand Prix, where he crashed during his out-lap.
This season introduced new regulations allowing adjustments between the sprint and the primary qualifying session, with parc ferme regulations being relaxed. Both Hamilton and his teammate George Russell seized this opportunity to make alterations to their vehicles.
Following the session, the 103-time Grand Prix champion addressed the media, explaining his intention to “experiment” with the setup. This statement was supported by his team, affirming Hamilton’s desire to explore different configurations in pursuit of optimal performance.
“Basically, we made massive changes going into qualifying – we just wanted to experiment,” he stated.
Hamilton took a different approach compared to his teammate Russell, who managed to navigate through Q1 successfully and proceeded to reach Q3 as anticipated. As a result, Russell will start the race on Sunday from the eighth position on the grid.
“George decided to go one way, much different to what he had, because we both had pretty much the same before, and I went this other direction just to see if we can find something,” he remarked.
Reflecting on his performance, Hamilton stated, “It didn’t feel terrible, I just couldn’t stop the car,” in reference to the incident at Turn 14.
“Shit happens, you know. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don’t. This car is on a knife-edge as we know, so it can easily do what we’ve had. But I’ll have some fun from there – I’ll come back.”
