The gap between George Russell and Lewis Hamilton in Jeddah explained: "He didn't manufacture his own problems"

Lewis Hamilton cut a frustrating figure at the end of the F1 Saudi Arabian GP at the Jeddah International Circuit on Sunday after finishing behind his Mercedes teammate George Russell in P5.

Lewis Hamilton never really looked comfortable and confident in his W14 compared to Russell, who out-qualified and outraced him in Jeddah. It was pointed out that both drivers made some setup changes ahead of the weekend, which might have played a role in the performance gap between the pair.

Speaking to The Race podcast, F1 pundit Scott Mitchell-Malm mentioned:

"Russell clearly got the car into a better working window than Hamilton did. I got the impression speaking to Lewis after qualifying and the race that he just sort of went in a setup direction, not vastly different to Russell but different enough that it just didn't seem to be right."

"Ultimately, Hamilton, on reflection about the weekend, did say that he got it wrong on setup and it made it very nervy and uncomfortable to drive in qualifying. He hasn't had confidence in the car all weekend and I think Russell did a better job and probably didn't manufacture his own problems which it sounds like Hamilton did a little bit and wanted to try to adjust the car setup,"

"If I had qualified better, then maybe I could have got a better result" - Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton mentioned that he was a bit disappointed with his P5 result and could have gotten more points if he had qualified better. While analyzing his race on Mercedes' official website, Lewis Hamilton said:

"We got some great points as a team today. I was able to move forward from seventh to fifth, which is the main thing. If I had qualified better, then maybe I could have got a better result but we still got some points. My set-up this weekend has been the biggest issue I’ve faced. I got it wrong for Qualifying and it wasn’t good in the race either, so I struggled today."

"We were trying to go long on the hard tire but the safety car came out, so I had to pit. We just about managed to make the medium work but it was a long second stint. We didn’t have the same tire degradation as we did in Bahrain, though. We were a lot closer to some of those ahead and it’s great to be in the top five, ahead of the Ferraris. There is a lot to work on but there are positives to take away from this weekend."

It will be interesting to see if Lewis Hamilton can bounce back in Australia, where he has won seven times in his career.