After dropping out in the second phase, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton was left to lament a ‘terrible’ qualifying session at Zandvoort, watching as teammate George Russell led the Mercedes assault.
Hamilton was in the mix during the early stages of a dry qualifying hour but could not produce a quick enough lap on his second Q2 run, having been involved in an alleged impeding incident with Red Bull rival Sergio Perez moments before.
At the end of it all, the Briton had to settle for 12th on the grid, with countryman and team mate Russell managing to progress to the pole position shootout and place fourth – behind the McLaren drivers and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
However, there was worse news to come for Hamilton, when the stewards handed him a three-place grid drop for that moment in Q1 with Perez, to leave him very much up against it to recover to the points tomorrow.
Speaking after the session and before the penalty had been dished out, Hamilton said:
“It just went downhill like a domino effect from the moment with Checo, then the balance just got more and more snappy, more and more ‘oversteery’ – it was terrible.
“It’s definitely very, very frustrating, naturally, but it is what it is. It’s kind of the weekend done and I’ll have to move on to next week [at Monza].”
With qualifying coming after a trio of mixed-weather and disrupted practice sessions, Hamilton added:
“I think the rain definitely made it tricky in the morning [in FP3], not to see where the car balance was.
“I think ultimately, if everyone had had a dry P3, we probably would have done a bit of a better job with the set-up, maybe, for qualifying, but still, I think just [the] performance wasn’t there from my side.”
Meanwhile, Friday practice pace-setter Russell was pleased to come away with a second-row grid slot after surviving a scare of his own in Q1 that forced him to pull a lap out of the bag on his final run to the chequered flag.
“It’s always a little bit difficult psychologically when you go out there and it’s just not feeling as you expect, and you’re down the order looking likely to, or potentially getting knocked out of Q1,” he said.
“We just had to take a reset. Q1 at the end I was strong, I think I was second, Q2 was really strong again right behind the McLarens, and then Q3 it just didn’t quite come to me – I expected a little bit more. But I think P4 was a fair result.”
As for his chances of fighting for the win on Sunday, he added:
“I think it’s all possible. I think realistically McLaren are still a smidge ahead of everyone.
“We’re doing a great job bringing these upgrades, but unfortunately McLaren are kind of improving their performance at the same rate as us, and we’re sort of pulling away from the rest of the midfield, closing that gap to Red Bull.
“McLaren have already overtaken Red Bull in terms of performance. We’ve just got to keep working hard, but they’re definitely in the prime position right now.”
