The weekend started to so positively for the seven-time Formula 1 champion, with him labelling Friday practice as his ‘best session’ of the season so far.
But an underwhelming qualifying left him seventh on the grid and things only got worse as the race went along, with Hamilton eventually crossing the line in ninth – over 48 seconds behind winner Max Verstappen.
Throughout the race, the 39-year-old questioned Mercedes’ tyre strategy and at one stage bluntly told his team to ‘change this strategy!’
Post-race, Hamilton doubled down on his opinion that the Silver Arrows had messed up again, though added that his W15 car was so slow that the right strategy probably wouldn’t have improved matters.
‘I don’t know what the other strategy would have been but we still had two really terrible hard tyres to run through. So a real challenge today,’ he told Sky Sports.
‘I think I picked up a bit of damage at the beginning when Charles [Leclerc] came around the outside.
‘I had huge understeer for the first stint. I couldn’t turn the car through any of the corners. That’s why I let George [Russell, his teammate] by.
‘The hard tyre was pretty bad as I said. The medium tyre was much better so yeah for sure. In hindsight, it looks like we should have had two medium tyres.
‘But in the general the car was pretty bad.’
The result means Hamilton has scored just 10 points from the opening four races, leaving him ninth in standings – a whopping 67 points off championship leader Verstappen.
Mercedes would have been hoping to close the gap to Red Bull in 2024, but instead they’ve fallen drastically behind and are now fourth in the table, far off Red Bull and Ferrari, and still some distance away from McLaren in third.
The Silver Arrows will hoping their fortunes improve a the next race in China in two weeks’ time.
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