George Russell offers thoughts on Lewis Hamilton's qualifying struggles in Saudi Arabia

Mercedes driver George Russell has offered his thoughts on the struggles of Lewis Hamilton at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Hamilton left many shocked on Saturday with him only able to post the 16th quickest time in qualifying, meaning he was eliminated in Q1 for the first-time since 2017.

Indeed, he never looked at home with the car and after the session said that the balance of it was all wrong, with him now having plenty of work to do just to get points tomorrow.

Team-mate Russell, meanwhile, had a better day of it as he earned P6 for tomorrow’s race but speaking to Sky afterwards, he admitted it wasn’t a good day for the team and suggested that a set-up tweak for Lewis was what caused his struggles:

“We are one team and as a team, it was not a good day.

“We don’t have a handle on the car at the moment, it’s very inconsistent and we’re fighting this small window [of optimal performance] and on our side of the garage we’re finding that window and unfortunately on Lewis’ side they didn’t manage to get into that window.

“You take the positives obviously but we’re not here to fight for p5 and p6 and we were nine-tenths off of Checo’s lap so we’ve got work to do.

“I think it’s just confidence, I’ve been in that position where I’ve had no confidence in a car and Lewis has been really on it this weekend, but he made a small set-up change and then didn’t have the confidence in Q1.”

The struggles for Mercedes, and particularly Hamilton, are there for all to see at the moment, then, and we’ll just have to wait and see how long it is going to take for them to get back on top of their problems.