Hamilton seeks fightback from P20 after ‘horrible’ Q1 exit in Las Vegas

Lewis Hamilton says he will try and let go of the “horrible” feeling from his Q1 exit at the Las Vegas Grand Prix to battle back from last on the grid.

Ferrari looked competitive throughout practice in Las Vegas but Hamilton did not get a clean lap during a wet qualifying, bemoaning a lack of tire temperature and then failing to keep pushing for a final attempt as he was unaware he had beaten the checkered flag. Dropping out in 20th place and set to start from the final spot on the grid, Hamilton says the car performance is encouraging despite the lowly position.

“Obviously it feels horrible; it doesn’t feel good,” Hamilton said. “But all I can do is, I've just got to let go. I'm going to try and come back [in the race].

“I've done everything I could possibly do in terms of preparation, in terms of all the practice sessions … [FP3] was feeling amazing, and I just didn't get a lap at the end, but I felt like we were quickest. And then you come out of qualifying 20th.

“This year is definitely the hardest year.

“I'll try [to come back]. I think we've got a really good car. It'll be really, really hard to come back from 20th, but [I’ll try].”

Hamilton’s teammate Charles Leclerc also had a frustrating end to qualifying as he went wide at Turn 12 to finish up ninth in Q3, and the Monaco native believes there is something wrong with Ferrari’s car characteristics in wet conditions.

“Since I joined the team we’ve been struggling massively at finding the grip in those kind of conditions,” Leclerc told F1TV. “It’s hugely frustrating because it’s probably been my biggest strength in the junior categories and then... We are doing something wrong. I have no idea what that is because we’ve turned the car upside down.

“We’ve had Lewis and obviously Carlos [Sainz] before that joined from other teams who could tell us the feeling they had with the other cars. It’s just extremely difficult to find the grip with our car.

“It’s very, very unpredictable with our car which causes us to do a lot of mistakes. It’s not that we are not trying because as a team we have tried absolutely everything. For some reason we just haven’t found our way yet.”