Lewis Hamilton claimed that the dismal Chinese GP result was down to him as he accepted his mistake to his race engineer at the end of the race.
The Mercedes driver's fortunes took a harsh nose dive after an impressive P2 finish in Sprint Qualifying on Friday and holding onto the position in the Sprint race on Saturday behind Max Verstappen.
The seven-time world champion could not replicate his heroics as he qualified a shocking P18 in the qualifying after the Sprint race owing to a wrong setup change. He made some headway in the main race as he finished P9 behind a struggling Oscar Piastri.
At the end of the race, Lewis Hamilton's engineer Peter Bonnington came on to the team radio to reflect on the race and said:
“That’s P9, mate. It was a real tough day in the office there, mate but we’ll go and figure it out.”
Hamilton replied by echoing the tone and said:
“Yep! I won’t make that set-up change again, Bono. That was my bad. Thank you guys, and good job on the pit stops.”
Lewis Hamilton analyzes his tough Chinese GP on Sunday
Lewis Hamilton stated that he was 'grateful' to finish in the points as he did not expect anything more given the difficulties with the car he had.
Speaking with Sky Sports, the British driver said:
"I'm grateful to get into the points. I didn't expect a lot more this weekend. Hopefully we have a step forward coming at the next race. Until then, we will be back at the factory next week and try and position the car better for Miami and have a better weekend."
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff was similarly disappointed with the race and added:
"The race car was not fast. You hear him saying the car doesn't turn and this is what we can see in the data. It wasn't the right thing to do. Lacking pace. We have got to dig deep. We have got something coming for Miami that looks like a good step, let's see where that brings us out."
George Russell had a better outing than his teammate as he finished P6 ahead of the charging Fernando Alonso and was challenging Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz for P5 in the latter half of the race.
Lewis Hamilton would hope for some change of luck heading into the next couple of races, as he has only scored 19 points in five races and a Sprint race.