Lewis Hamilton blamed his shock q2 knockout the Azerbaijan Grand Prix about poor team strategy that returned to a tire decision on Friday.
Hamilton was the fastest driver at the end of Friday’s practice and expected to challenge pole on Saturday, but instead he will be the 12th in line after missing a top 10 berth with 0.395s. The disappointing result followed Ferrari to steer Hamilton on a single set of soft tires for two flying laps during the Q2. Not only was no piece good enough for Q3, but also not faster than Hamilton’s best time of Q1.
Teammate Charles Leclerc was now able to skate in the top 10 after switching from a set of soft tires to a set of the more stable mediums for his last run.
Hamilton said he had preferred the same tire strategy, but that the team’s Friday training program had left him without enough sets of mediums to get it done.
“The team chose to lead me at the medium in FP2,” he explained. “Charles was meant to let it work in the second series of FP2, but then, because everyone was not on them, chose to keep it.
“All top 10 had three media in principle [except me]. We knew that the medium was faster – they said with about 0.3’s or something – and it felt great. We should have performed it in Q2. “
Hamilton said that the team preferred to save his two remaining sets of medium -sized tires for two runs in Q3.
“Well, you have to go to Q3 first,” said Hamilton. “So in the end it was just not the best performance. I am certainly disappointed.”
The Brit, however, admitted that he was not as comfortable in the car on Saturday as on Friday, pointing out by teams guided Setup changes that led him astray.
“One of the things that was edited a bit was a bit of a direction that the team insisted that we are going with a part of the setup,” he said. “That didn’t feel as good as FP2. But I felt that we made a lot of progress and we looked pretty strong.
“I really thought I would fight for the top three today. I thought I might get a pole today.
However, teammate Leclerc had exactly the opposite feedback after his own qualifying disappointment. The resident of Monaco, who had taken the previous four pool positions in Baku in succession, deposited out of 15 15 without a time and will be in 10th place.
Leclerc said that the car had improved the car before Saturday before the night, and he complained about switching from the soft tire to the medium despite qualifying expectations that it would be the better performer.
“I changed the car quite a bit in qualifying and I felt a lot better in Q1, and all the rounds on the soft felt much better,” he said. “Then we went on medium, what we had kept because we thought it was the best tire, and today it was simply impossible for me to switch them on with these temperatures.
“Difficult circumstances or not, I don’t think this is the reason. I think we just missed a lot of pace on the medium. I was probably 0.7s or 0.8s out for the mistake [touching the wall at Turn 4 in Q2]And I pushed like crazy.
“I had a bit of the same position as Lewis – I thought I had an advantage to go with the media in Quali, and then I visited them and I was a bit sorry that I had an advantage because it was extremely difficult.
“We will look at what has changed on the right track to have it so difficult, but if you look at Q2, first run, with my medium I almost did not get through to Q2. I had already went a few times. I didn’t have that feeling with the soft. We felt something – we will look in it. It was difficult.”
Despite his disappointment, Hamilton said that his goal remained unchanged for the race.
“My pace was reasonable in FP2 – at the racing pace we were the fastest – so I really hope we have a pretty pace tomorrow,” he said. “I have a good linear speed. Hopefully we should be able to fight cars. So much can happen here with security cars, all kinds of strategy can really get into the game, so I’m just going to get in as optimistic as possible.
“I’m still going to try to get into the top three. That has been my goal all week. Where there is a will, there is a way.”
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