SUZUKA, Japan — Lewis Hamilton took responsibility for his poor qualifying performance at the Japanese Grand Prix, stating it was “not good enough.”
The seven-time world champion will start in eighth place at Suzuka on Sunday. His qualifying time was 0.311 seconds slower than his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, who will begin the race in fourth position.
“Obviously, P8 is not good enough from my side,” Hamilton told Sky Sports. “I was glad to reach Q3, it was a close fight with everyone, but I didn`t manage to get good laps in Q3.”
During Q2, Hamilton was hindered by Carlos Sainz approaching Turn 1, forcing the Ferrari driver off the track. Sainz received a three-place grid penalty and will start 15th.
Hamilton`s initial race weekends with Ferrari have been mixed. He won the sprint race in China but was disqualified from the main grand prix the next day.
His Ferrari was removed from the results because the plank under the car had excessive wear, resulting from running the car too low.
Despite the plank wear being just 0.5 millimeters over the allowed limit, Hamilton confirmed they are running the car higher in Japan, sacrificing some performance to avoid a repeat of the disqualification.
“We are running higher than we would prefer, but everyone is in a similar situation,” Hamilton added.
“Especially after the last race, we are running a bit higher than we want – it’s a consequence of the previous weekend. Charles performed an amazing lap today.”
“We chose different setup directions, and I had a lot of understeer that I couldn`t resolve during qualifying.”
Hamilton hopes for rain during tomorrow`s race to improve his chances of moving up through the field.
“I`m excited, I generally enjoy racing in the rain. It will be challenging, but when you have a qualifying session like I did, you hope for rain.”
