Lewis Hamilton said he was behind an aggressive set-up change on his Mercedes which led to his poor performance in the Chinese Grand Prix.
He finished Saturday’s sprint race second to Max Verstappen after qualifying on the front row of the grid in a rain-affected session. However after taking advantage of the new opportunity to make set-up changes between the sprint race and grand prix qualifying, Hamilton admitted he took a wrong turn.
“Ultimately, I made a bad set-up change to the car yesterday and I paid the price for it,” he said. “I plan to make sure I don’t do that in the future.”
Hamilton qualified 18th for the grid prix. From there, having initially struggled to make progress on the soft tyres, he rose to finish ninth.
“I went forwards and got into the points, but it was a tough race,” he added.
“The car does seem to work in a small window, and I did think it was the correct thing to do. Sadly, it made today very difficult. The team did a great job with the pit stops though and George [Russell] did well to score some solid points.”
Russell rose two places from his starting position to finish sixth, which he said was “probably a fair” result.
Hamilton repeatedly complained about his car’s handling during the race. Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said they were pleased to finish in the top 10 after his difficult start to the race.
“Lewis’s race wasn’t easy as he didn’t gain much off the line on the soft tyre,” he said. “He then got stuck in a traffic jam on the inside line around turn two and lost to cars on the wide line.
“We had made some changes to his car after the sprint and clearly they weren’t didn’t improve the car. It made qualifying and the race difficult. He was struggling to turn the car and having to use the power to do so, which was hurting the rear tyres.
“We decided to pit him under the Virtual Safety Car to offset to other cars, but most of our competitors did the same once the Safety Car was deployed. We benefitted from a couple of cars dropping out ahead but, considering the early part of the race, it was a relief to get some points.”
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2024 Chinese Grand Prix
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