‘Deflated’ Hamilton says weekend ‘pretty much done’ after Q2 exit

2017 Monaco Grand Prix

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A ‘deflated’ Lewis Hamilton says his Monaco Grand Prix weekend is ‘pretty much done’ after he was eliminated in Q2 and doomed to a 13th place start.

The Mercedes driver was under pressure in the drop zone in the closing stages of Q2 after struggling with a lack of rear grip. A crash for Stoffel Vandoorne brought out the yellow flags and scuppered his chances of improving.

“That’s pretty much the weekend done,” says Hamilton. “Tomorrow I’ll just be driving around in whatever position out of the top ten.

“I’ll try and get up as high as I can, but it’s hard to overtake here as you know. It’s going to be a nice Sunday drive tomorrow I imagine.”

Hamilton had visibly struggled with a lack of grip in the first two qualifying sessions, almost sliding into the barriers entering Casino Square after losing the rear of his Mercedes.

“The opportunity wasn’t there for me,” explains Hamilton. “I just struggled with the car. I don’t really have much to say at the moment.”

Asked if he would’ve improved his time were it not for the yellow flag, Hamilton admits the disappointment has left him ‘deflated’.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, does it? I got the yellow flag. Yeah. Deflated, but I’ll keep pushing tomorrow.”

2017 Monaco Grand Prix

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    Will Wood
    Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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    25 comments on “‘Deflated’ Hamilton says weekend ‘pretty much done’ after Q2 exit”

    1. hamilton has never been like his idol Ayrton Senna around monaco. he and Bottas had the same issue yesterday, but Hamilton could not drive around it or set up his car better, so that is that, saying the weeking is “pretty much done” is a really spoilt attitude from always being in the best car – this result can bring him down to earth and see how drivers like Alonso feel every weekend, where is the fighter in hamilton? monaco often has safety cars…

    2. Even without Vandoorne binning it, it’s doubtful Hamilton would have made Q3 as he was only a tenth up on 10th place at that point and there were a few drivers behind him who could have pushed him out again (not counting Vandoorne obviously).

    3. Even if his setup wasn’t optimal, Hamilton should have been able to extract more than 14th!
      Not going to help his WDC chances for sure.
      Be interesting to see how Ferrari will screw Kimi to get Vettel in front of him.

      1. nelson piquet
        27th May 2017, 16:01

        ferrari is already on the edge in terms or engine parts so vettel will get a decent amount of grid penalties from like austria on what will help hamilton win the championship even tho i’m rooting for vettel or any other driver than hamilton.

        1. Sundar Srinivas Harish
          28th May 2017, 2:58

          I believe that Ferrari management already commented on this. They claim to be using the round-robin method when it comes to engine parts, so they believe that they won’t be in as much trouble later in the year as people say.

    4. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
      27th May 2017, 16:07

      I really don’t know what was up with Haimiton today. Even if he had a problem, it wasn’t just that that made him look poor. He held up 2 cars pretty badly and cost them both on that lap. Magnussen was one of them I think. Hamilton just didn’t manage to get himself in the right position without affecting others. And because of his lack of attempts early on, he lost out because of an incident right at the end. But all drivers should be prepared that something like this can happen. Early laps are important. Bottas does seem to be about equal to Hamilton on qualifying pace this year. Possibly better as there have been 2 races now where the gap between Bottas when he’s in front has simply been massive. Here and Russia. Bottas has now had 2 races where he’s been off pole by under a 10th of a second even though they both resulted in starting 3rd. Rather unlucky really! It somehow made him look worse than he is. It was only 0.45 behind Pole and 0.002 off Vettel here in Monaco. Such a tiny gap. But the Ferrari’s obviously did what they needed to.

      Lets hope Hamilton can catch up in the race. But I do expect that Bottas will get a chance to grab some points to get him closer to Hamilton that he missed due to his retirement last race. If this happens and Hamilton happens to have a retirement the race after, they will basically be equal on points again. Canada is also one of Bottas’s best circuits and I think he’ll have a good chance of beating Hamilton there.

      1. @thegianthogweed Canada is also one of Hamilton’s best circuits… ;) But I’ve never seen him struggle like he did today…not in terms of pure pace, at least.

      2. @thegianthogweed I haven’t seen Hamilton being this vulnerable in many years I must say. In Sochi he was surprisingly slow and this weekend he seems to be struggling too. Maybe his true desire to demolish his teammate has gone with Bottas as his new teammate. This qualifying session reminds me of 2011, when Hamilton didn’t set a banker lap and was then caught out by Pérez’ crash, which left him with P9 instead of a possible front-row grid slot. I think he has to gamble with the strategy to maximize his chances of scoring points.

    5. Neil (@neilosjames)
      27th May 2017, 16:19

      Car looked appalling… not seen a Mercedes waggle around like that for a long time, be interesting to see whether it was just setup or something else not right with it.

      1. It’s the second time now for Lewis so l wouldn’t point at the car

        1. what a daft comment

        2. I agree. Bottas so far has looked more consistent than Hamilton. It just shows that Hamilton is not that special, he on two wdc’s because of the car he was driving which has been the most dominant cars in formula history. When the car is not the fastest Hamilton and vettel just can’t do what Alonso does with whatever car he is given. To me the way vettel and Hamilton has won wdc (driving the best and fastest cars) make it look not as worth it as what Alonso , senna and even Schumacher have accomplished. They got many rspectacular results while not driving the best cars. Vettel was beaten quite comprehensively by ricciardo and that was when the car wasn’t as aerodynamically efficient as this year’s cars.

      2. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
        27th May 2017, 16:33

        @neilosjames
        I really do think it is just as likely, if not more likely that Hamilton is having a bad weekend like he did in Russia. This reminds me of qualifying in Baku last year. There was nothing wrong with the car but he just occasionally struggles to perform and makes loads of mistakes.
        He kept affecting other drivers laps as well as messing up his own laps. I don’t think that it will have been reliability as he had plenty of chances to do a lap that he backed out of. He left it until too late before he started to do at least a reasonable lap.

    6. Peppermint-Lemon (@)
      27th May 2017, 16:30

      Well I guess Hamilton misses Nico’s setup more than he lets on. Good to see Bottas smash him.

    7. I did wonder after Russia whether we’d see a repeat of Hamilton’s struggles on the ultra-soft tyre and it appears we have. On both occasions Bottas has made the Mercedes look respectable too.

      I find it ironic that Hamilton’s been talking about the consistency that will be required to win the championship this year, but so far he’s been up and down like a yo-yo.

    8. What if and it’s a big what if Mercedes didn’t want to put all their eggs in one basket in light of the high chances of a safety car and the durability of the US; scenario 1 VB starts near the sharp end,
      probably sneaks past one or both Ferrari’s if not he shadows them until they perform an undercut on one of them then it’s a race to the finish. Scenario 2 Hamilton starts on the SS probably makes a couple of places before the safety car/VSC emerges then he’s on the US , all of a sudden he’s just behind the leaders and on the faster tire

      1. @mim5 – Merc undercutting Ferrari isn’t on the cards as the long runs during FP show that Ferrari is consistently much quicker. This means that unless Bottas gets ahead of both Ferraris at the start, they will simply disappear into the distance. And don’t forget that only Bottas managed to dial in a good set-up for the ultra softs and that the Red Bulls definitely have a good chance to get on the podium! I’m sorry to dash your hopes but Hamilton being lapped is much more likely than him getting back in contention for the win. The only thing that could change this is a repeat of the 1998 Belgian GP first-lap carnage.

    9. Wanna take a free drivin’ lesson in my Panda, Lew?

    10. Weekends like this are one of the reasons I’d struggle to put Hamilton above Alonso. Granted he only has a few per season but it’s costly.

    11. I’m a big fan of Hamilton but that was flipping awful. Even if balance wasn’t right, Ham was poor. Kudos to Raikonnen and Bottas (and begrudgingly Vettel!) :-P

    12. Again it’s the car.. perhaps LH should have used VB set up. He didn’t seem to have car issues.

      1. Sundar Srinivas Harish
        28th May 2017, 3:03

        I’m not sure if I’m missing sarcasm here, but Lauda did mention that both of them ran identical setups. Let us not get into conspiracy theories of engineers vs. Hamilton this year.

    13. Might be a bad setup as well but when you’re that experienced like Hamilton you should know better.It’s the second time Bottas is faster in qualy by a mile.

    14. Sorry, whilst I agree Hamilton’s performance has been very poor this weekend I would like to say, that if he does not know why he is off the pace and neither do Mercedes, how come all the experts on here have the answer. 5 podiums including 2 wins show’s that he knows how to drive around Monaco, so my guess is that it is not all down to driver issues.

    15. Hamilton has been massively disappointing this year and is having his worst season in F1.

      If he can’t solve these setup issues then that’s his problem, him and Bottas had the same setup yet he got the tyres working. Instead of trying to be Zoolander he needs to do some homework or say bye bye to title number 4.

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