Lewis Hamilton, who started the Dutch Grand Prix in 14th place due to a grid penalty, spoke about his “shocking” and “awful” early withdrawal from qualifying.
Before the summer break, Hamilton won two of the three races. First, he won the British Grand Prix. Then, he won the Belgian Grand Prix when his Mercedes teammate George Russell was disqualified for running a car that did not satisfy the minimum weight standards.
However, the seven-time world champion’s chances of building on that triumph were dashed on Saturday at Zandvoort when he finished outside the top 10 in Q2 due to an error on Turn 13 on his final lap.
Alex Albon of Williams was disqualified for driving an illegal car, and Hamilton, who had qualified in 12th position initially, was given a three-grid penalty for obstructing Sergio Perez of Red Bull in the first qualifying round.
The British player claims that after the incident, things “went from bad to worse,” as he had his worst qualifying performance since placing 18th in China earlier in the season.
He said to Sky Sports F1 that the session was “very startling.” “These things happen, and it’s done now, but it definitely doesn’t feel nice,” he said. As soon as the Perez scenario arose, everything went wrong.
“I tried my best to move aside and position myself as far to the left as I could, but the timing was off. From that point on, everything proceeded from bad to worse, like a domino effect.”
Hamilton went on, “The balance became more and more abrupt and too cautious.” It was awful and incredibly aggravating. We move on to the following week after sort of wrapping up the weekend.”
The 39-year-old, who had led the timesheets from the opening laps in the first practice, was also disappointed that Saturday’s third practice was cut short due to a significant incident involving Logan Sargeant of Williams on the then-wet track.
“It was difficult to determine the balance in the morning due to the rain,” Hamilton continued. We might have set up for qualifying better with a dry P3, but my performance wasn’t up to par.”
In Friday afternoon’s lone dry practice session of the weekend, teammate Russell had taken the lead and Hamilton had come in third.
