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Suspension issue triggers miserable day at COTA for Hamilton, Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton says a suspension problem ahead of the Sprint race was the catalyst for a “terrible” day as he dropped out in Q1 at the United States Grand Prix.
Mercedes looked quick throughout the Sprint Shootout on Friday evening but a yellow flag on Hamilton’s final lap prevented him from having a chance of setting the fastest time. A largely uncompetitive run to sixth place in the Sprint was put down to a suspension issue, but Hamilton believes there was an issue with the car’s configuration after that as he finished 19th in qualifying.
“It’s been pretty terrible,” Hamilton said. “The car felt great yesterday, so obviously came really optimistic for today. Something failed on the front suspension literally as we pulled away from the line for the formation lap, and I had that through the race. They figured that out, they changed the corner, and it felt like a mess, obviously, through qualifying.”
With the Sprint weekend taking on a different format that gives teams just one practice session, Hamilton said the failure is frustrating given the pace Mercedes has shown.
“I don’t know what the result… This shouldn’t happen, and it’s obviously not planned," he said.
“I was about to qualify [on] pole yesterday, so it’s not a mental problem. When the suspension is failing or breaking, and things aren’t coming together, I mean today … you’ll have to ask the team what happened with the suspension. I know the guys are working as hard as they can; they did the change.
“Any performance we bring is positive. All of a sudden [yesterday] we were looking really quick. I don’t know where that went, but we’ll keep pushing.”
Hamilton says a fightback drive is unlikely in Sunday’s race, as he will start from 18th due to Liam Lawson’s grid penalty.
“There’s not going to be a lot going on. I started in karts with a pretty bad go-kart and used to come through the field, so I’ll see if I can do that tomorrow.”
Chris Medland
While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.
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