F1 News

Hamilton downbeat after failing to reach Q3

Hamilton left dejected in Zandvoort ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix

24 August at 15:43

Lewis Hamilton failed to reach Q3 for the second year running at the Dutch Grand Prix. While his teammate George Russell was quick enough to get a place in the second row, Hamilton had to watch the session from the garage. The Brit was downbeat about his chances in the Dutch Grand Prix.

Hamilton has won two of the last three Grands Prix, albeit he benefitted from his teammate's disqualification last time out in Belgium. Hamilton would've thought the qualifying problems were behind Mercedes, but the difficulty remains in Zandvoort.

How Hamilton reacted to his Q2 knockout at Zandvoort 

"Not ideal. It was a difficult session," Hamilton told GPblog and others in Zandvoort. The Brit will start from 12th if the stewards don't penalise him for an incident with Sergio Perez. The Brit is under investigation following potential impeding in the opening part of qualifying. Hamilton stressed he did all he could to get out of the way of the Mexican.

Hamilton then went on to explain why he struggled in qualifying. The third free practice session was curtailed due to a horror crash for Logan Sargeant. "I think we made changes overnight and then couldn't see it in FP3, but that's the same for everybody. We changed the car quite a bit. I made more changes than Russell," Hamilton added.

"The car was massively snappy today. Yesterday was lots of understeer, I think we tried to dial that out and went too much the other way. It will probably be a struggle to get into the top ten," Hamilton concluded.

Want more Formula 1? Then follow GPblog on our various social media channels!

XInstagram | TikTok | YouTube