Hamilton blames set-up experiment for F1 Chinese GP Q1 exit

Lewis Hamilton has blamed an aggressive set-up experiment on his Mercedes Formula 1 car for the premature Q1 elimination he suffered at the Chinese Grand Prix.

Hamilton had been sustaining a more encouraging weekend as he capitalised on circumstances to lead the nascent stages of the Sprint and finished in second place.

However, the Briton was unable to replicate his second-place starting grid berth from earlier on as a lock-up into the Turn 14 hairpin condemned him to 18th position.

“Just struggled, I made massive changes coming into this qualifying,” Hamilton highlighted. “Yeah. It wasn’t too bad in some places.

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“But I struggled, I couldn’t get the rear to stop in Turn 14, so… it is what it is. I’ll have fun from back there.”

The revised Sprint format now sees parc ferme conditions reopened in the middle of the weekend to enable teams to make set-up changes prior to the main qualifying.

Hamilton has tended to trial unknown set-ups on his car amid Mercedes’ struggles with the current rules and he conceded that the choice to change direction backfired.

“Going in this morning, George [Russell] and I had very similar cars but then this afternoon, we just switched, trying to experiment still with the car,” he said.

“So I went one way, a long way, and he went the other way, just to see if we can find anything. That’s what we need to do at the moment. But yeah. Didn’t work.”

Hamilton, who has endured his worst opening to an F1 season this term, has started near the back in Shanghai before, climbing from 22nd to seventh back in 2016.

“I’ll give it my best shot,” he continued. “18th is pretty bad. When I was making the set-up changes, I was like, it can’t get any worse, surely, and it did! S*** happens.”