Lewis Hamilton said he felt “a lot of anger” after failing to progress from Q1 for the fourth time in a row at Formula 1’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
After ceding his SF-25 to Arthur Leclerc for Free Practice 1 on Friday, as Ferrari fulfilled the regulations regarding track time for rookies, Hamilton crashed out of FP3 in the Turn 9 curve.
“Just had some bottoming and then lost the back end,” Hamilton tersely explained at the end of the day. “[The team] saw some bouncing going in and they said that carried all the way through.”
The seven-time world champion ended up qualifying down in 16th, just 0.008s away from the Q2 cut-off time, which marked his fourth consecutive Q1 exit (including sprint qualifying in Qatar).
Asked if the crash affected his qualifying, Hamilton added: “It definitely doesn't help when you have missed your second run.” This added to the forgone FP1 session, which the Briton labelled as “never helpful”, though he admitted that “everyone’s in the same boat”.
This is how wretchedly Hamilton’s 19th and toughest campaign in F1 has been ending, with the veteran struggling to match team-mate Charles Leclerc and score the points the Scuderia would have needed to do better than fourth in the constructors’ championship.
When his poor qualifying streak was mentioned, Hamilton said: “I don't have the words to express how I feel, just a lot of anger.”
The Ferrari racer doesn’t expect a great result in Sunday’s race, commenting “there’s not a lot you can do” starting from 16th at Yas Marina. When it was suggested he might “shove the hards on, go a long way and see what happens”, he simply replied: “It's the same thing every weekend for me, so give it a shot.”
And as to whether the winter break will be enough to reset mentally, Hamilton just pointed out “it’s the shortest break” and therefore “time will tell”.
Pre-season testing will get under way at Barcelona in just seven weeks.
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