Lewis Hamilton laments ‘perfect storm’ in tough Azerbaijan F1 qualifying

Lewis Hamilton was left disheartened by another difficult day as he fell to sixth place in qualifying for the F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The seven-time champion conceded that Ferrari may now have only the third-fastest car on the grid after Red Bull found speed on Friday.

Lewis Hamilton blames Ferrari strategy and tyres in Baku

Hamilton has been highly critical of Ferrari’s execution of various sessions this season, with his frustrations previously reaching a high at Zandvoort when team orders were not used to assist his title push.

Now over 100 points back on leader Kimi Antonelli, Hamilton has conceded defeat in his pursuit of a record-breaking eighth crown.

Ferrari had shown strong pace across the three practice sessions, with Charles Leclerc and Hamilton appearing evenly matched.

But in Q3, Hamilton was bemused by the decision to complete only a single run, denying him any chance of utilising a powerful tow.

“We’ve been struggling all weekend to get the tyres working,” he said.

“Q1 was pretty okay, and I felt like the car wasn’t too bad in Q1. I think Q2 started struggling even more with the rear tyres, and then and I had I was behind at least some cars in those two sessions.

“After Q2, they decided to change the run plan and just do one run, which I hadn’t foreseen the fact that I would come out with no one ahead of me and just towing Charles the whole time.”

He added: “[We have the] second or…I don’t know, third fastest car. Max [Verstappen] has been quicker all weekend and I don’t know what happened to him in this session.

“Charles did a really good job. Again, right at the end, I gave him a really good tow all the way to the start line. It will be hard to overtake any of the cars that are ahead.”

Suggested that this was a “perfect storm”, Hamilton replied only, “Yeah.”

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Lewis Hamilton makes F1 tyre demand

Before Pirelli introduced tyres with high levels of degradation – something that was widely called for after a chaotic 2010 Canadian Grand Prix – F1 drivers could nurse tyres to complete close to a full race distance.

But after the less durable rubber entered the mix, teams quickly adapted to running at a slower pace to manage the tyres without requiring five or six stops.

Expanding on his qualifying frustration, Hamilton did not hide his thoughts on what Pirelli needs to do.

“As I said, I was weaving to try and save my life when I still couldn’t get these stupid tyres working,” he said.

“It’s such a pain in the ass. We’ve got to bring back some good tyres.”

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