Lewis Hamilton knocked-out of qualifying for the first time in 5 years

Lewis Hamilton has been knocked out of the qualifying session of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The Briton failed to get his Mercedes W13 through to the second session of qualifying for the first time since Brazil 2017.

In what is one of the biggest shocks to the F1 world, seven-time world champion and a usually dominant driver Hamilton failed to place in the top 15 drivers in Q1 at the ongoing Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The Briton last left Q1 at the 2017 Brazilian Grand Prix where he spun into the barriers during his out-lap at Interlagos.

Speaking to Natalie Pinkham after his early retirement, Lewis Hamilton said:

“I struggled with the car, it was very snappy. I was comfortably losing the backend of the car. I don’t really know. I had a problem with the car, it was snapping in the high-speeds. It’s a wonder that I wasn’t the driver in the wall.”

It must be noted that the last time the world champion was out of Q1 due to sheer pace inadequacies was during the 2009 British Grand Prix, nearly 13 years ago.

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Lewis Hamilton claimed his car wouldn't be drastically different at Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

After a shock podium in the 2022 opener in Bahrain, many expected Mercedes to bring in big improvements to the weekend in Jeddah. Lewis Hamilton, however, claimed that fans would be disappointed to learn that major changes were not brought to Jeddah, despite numerous speculations.

Speaking about the lack of drastic performance changes, Hamilton said:

“Huge amount of work has gone on in the past three days. Very proud of my team for just keeping their heads down and staying focused. Turning through the crazy amount of data that we have basically every time we get into the car. And just trying to understand the issue that we have. We are aware of the problems we have, but in terms of what is causing it [Trying to find]. There’s not a huge difference here this weekend but hopefully we will have some things to try.”

It seems like the most successful team in the turbo-hybrid era is going through some major hiccups as they battle with the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull who seem to be miles ahead in terms of overall pace. Catch the action live as F1 returns to the fastest street circuit in Jeddah for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.