Lewis Hamilton endured a horrendous qualifying session for the Monaco Grand Prix, and found himself eliminated in the second phase after a number of moments with his W08.
The Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team racer found himself unable to better fourteenth in the session after appearing to be at unease with his car, with the Briton aborting one lap after a lurid moment at Massenet that almost saw him hit the barriers, while his next run was nothing special, with the car looking a handful to drive.
Hamilton was on course to improve on his final run but was forced to abort and return to the pits when Stoffel Vandoorne crashed out ahead of him, and although he moves up a spot when Jenson Button takes his grid penalty for an engine change, he admitted to being deflated with his performance on Saturday.
“I really struggled with the car today and I just don’t think the opportunity was quite there for me,” said Hamilton. “It was a little bit unfortunate with the yellow flag, but it doesn’t really matter now if I could have gone faster.
“I think that lap may have just got me into the top 10 but I would have struggled to make it into the top five with the pace that I had. Valtteri [Bottas, team-mate] didn’t have any struggles today so I’m a bit confused and I can’t pinpoint the problem at the moment.
“I’m feeling pretty deflated right now but I’ll try again tomorrow. It’s great that Valtteri extracted a good lap. We just need to identify why I wasn’t able to be up there too. Onwards and upwards.”
