Saturday and Sunday of the Chinese Grand Prix “felt like a disaster from my side”, admitted Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton put in a sub-par performance in Saturday’s qualifying session, setting the fourth-fastest time of the day and finishing nearly six tenths of a second slower than pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel, then had a relatively poor race, finishing fourth thanks largely to misfortunes befalling drivers in front of him.
Whilst he says that his tyres cost him time in the race and prevented him from fighting the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing cars more, Hamilton admitted he was struggling with the car far earlier than the safety car restart.
“It was another difficult day at the office. I was trying to hold on, but my tyres were done, so I had no chance of keeping the Red Bulls behind. Saturday and Sunday felt like a disaster from my side. I just haven’t had the pace since yesterday and I struggled with the car.”
Commenting on his performance, the current World Champion said he needs to regain his former form before he loses more points in the title race – though Max Verstappen‘s collision with Vettel “did [him] a favour“.
“We’ve been underperforming but I’m not going to let my head drop because I know we have a tough battle ahead of us. I need to get back to my normal level of performance before I lose more valuable points. It could have been worse, Max did me a favour today in terms of the points standings, but it’s a weekend to forget, that’s for sure. Now we need to work hard to understand why we have been struggling and start the climb back to the front of the field.“
