Lewis Hamilton’s three-word admission sums up ‘nightmare’ United States GP qualifying

Hamilton will line up in 18th place in the United States GP after not making it through the first qualifying round in Austin which made it a terrible Saturday for the British driver.

This weekend’s United States Grand Prix has Lewis Hamilton already eyeing the next race after a nightmare qualifying session saw him weighing up a pit lane start.

Mercedes star Hamilton could not progress to second round of Sunday’s qualifying session on Saturday after failing to have a shot at a podium finish in the Sprint race on Saturday due to suspension problem. Seven-time world champion McLaren qualified P19 though Liam Lawson’s engine penalty promote Hamilton into P18 grid.

But that consolation is small comfort to the Brit, who described his problems at the end of his interview after qualifying. Asked by F1 TV how disappointed he was with his performance, a glum Hamilton replied: “I’m P19, so…”

The interviewer followed up by asking where the pace went, to which the 39-year-old replied: “I don’t know.”

Hamilton, the record six-time winner of the US GP, was more willing to elaborate when quizzed on potential issues with the car itself. “I know there was something broken in the Sprint but the guys worked really hard to fix it,” he explained. “But it was terrible in quali. Definitely demoralising but it is what it is and I’ll look forward to next week [the Mexican Grand Prix ].”

Saturday marked the first time that Hamilton had failed to progress beyond Q1 at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas in 12 visits and even suggested that he’d be better off starting from the pit-lane. “The car was a nightmare in qualifying,” he added to Sky Sports. “I should probably start in the pit lane, otherwise I won’t be going anywhere from where I am.”

Hamilton, who’d enjoyed a promising Friday and felt the benefits of Mercedes’ upgrades, also bemoaned: In the Sprint we had some sort of failure on the formation lap on the front suspension, and I had that throughout the Sprint race. The balance, with that kind of leverage, became really hard to do. We did alter a couple of things, just in the direction of what we would have done yesterday.”

Mercedes team-mate George Russell did even better to get to Q3, but went off on his final run to end the qualifying session, which handed pole to McLaren’s Lando Norris with title leader Max Verstappen of Red Bull taking second.

Thankfully, Russell managed to get out of his car on his own and will start Sunday’s race in sixth place which at least gives Mercedes some chance of a better points haul. Yesterday it felt that the pace was coming easily but the car didn’t look as put together. Today it just was not,” Russell commented.

Something of that nature appears like such a theme that when we find the sweet spot we have a car that can achieve pole positions and wins. When we can’t, we are nowhere. Apologies to the team. Both have strived to introduce such enhancements and it is rather frustrating on my end given the result utilised here.