Lewis Hamilton has blamed the wrong direction taken with the set-up of his car as the reason behind his disastrously uncompetitive qualifying performance for the Japanese Grand Prix, which saw the Briton qualify a dismal 9th overall. After enjoying a relatively competitive day of practice yesterday, Hamilton endured a tough qualifying hour.
As the qualifying session for tomorrow’s Japanese Grand Prix progressed, one of the biggest surprises of the afternoon was the uncompetitiveness of Lewis Hamilton in comparison to team-mate Jenson Button and the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. In Q1, Hamilton could only manage 14th fastest, with only a minor improvement in the second session which saw the Briton only just progress to the top-ten shootout in 8th. Whilst Jenson Button fought the Red Bull duo for pole position, the 2008 World Champion could only manage 9th fastest, in what he has described as one of his worst qualifying performances of the year.
“Today’s qualifying session was one of the most disappointing of my year.” Explained a downbeat Lewis Hamilton after qualifying. “To be honest, I went the wrong way with the set-up and ended up with too much understeer. Until quali, the car had felt great all weekend, but I just couldn’t make it turn this afternoon, and as a result I just couldn’t extract the best from it. It’s [the race] going to be a struggle, but I’ll be pushing my hardest with the set-up I’ve got, and I hope that, through good tyre management, I’ll be able to overtake some of the cars in front of me. I’ll be trying to get as many points as I can tomorrow.”
Regardless of Jenson Button’s grid penalty due to a gearbox change, the 2009 World Champion will still start tomorrow’s race ahead of Lewis Hamilton, such was his uncompetitiveness during qualifying. Victory for McLaren is highly unlikely tomorrow, however both of their drivers will be striving to bring home as many points as possible during the 53-lap race.
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