Hamilton blames 'undriveable' Mercedes for shock Q1 exit

Lewis Hamilton believes a wrong choice on set-up was to blame for his shock Q1 exit at Formula 1’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, admitting his car was “undriveable”.

Mercedes has looked off the pace all weekend in Jeddah as it continues to suffer with the porpoising issues that it was plagued with in Bahrain.

But after claiming pole position at F1’s first-ever visit to Saudi Arabia in December last year, Hamilton was unable to extract performance from his car – leading to him being knocked out in the first segment of qualifying.

Lance Stroll’s late effort pipped Hamilton’s lap time to drop him into the bottom five, handing him his first Q1 elimination since Brazil 2017.

Speaking after the session, Hamilton pinpointed the team’s direction on set-up had left unable to find a good balance after showing better form in the final practice session on Saturday morning.

“Just struggled with the balance of the car. And not where I want to be,” Hamilton said.

“It’s something in the set-up. It was looking good in FP3 and we tried to progress in a similar direction.

“Maybe we went too far and then the car was undriveable. It’s so nervous.”

Hamilton admitted he wasn’t confident of charging through the field in Sunday’s race, hinting he may choose to start from the pitlane in order to make changes to the car.

“I’ve got the same car as I had in qualifying, so I don’t anticipate moving that far forwards,” Hamilton said. “But I’ll give it everything.”

While Hamilton failed to make it out of Q1, Mercedes team-mate George Russell faired much better, qualifying sixth on the grid.

But, similar to Bahrain, all of Mercedes’ customer teams struggled, with Williams, Aston Martin and McLaren unable to make it through to the top 10 shootout.