Lewis Hamilton struggling to ‘bond’ with Ferrari as travails continue
Lewis Hamilton's F1 qualifying woes continued in Saudi Arabia as he could only manage P7.
Lewis Hamilton has admitted he is struggling to “bond” with his Ferrari F1 car as his qualifying travails continued at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The seven-time world champion nearly went out in Q1 and Q2 before only managing a lap good enough for seventh on the grid as he ended up half a second behind Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, who grabbed fourth.
Hamilton has been lagging behind Leclerc all weekend so far in Jeddah and was also outqualified by the driver he replaced at Ferrari, Williams’ Carlos Sainz, for the second consecutive weekend.
"It was challenging, as always, qualifying for me,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
“I've been nowhere all weekend - 13th I think in almost every session - so, honestly, I feel grateful to have got to Q3 and P7.
"Not a spectacular last lap but have been making improvements all weekend. Needed a better lap at the end but, as I said, I'm just grateful to be there. Still plenty of time to come.”
Asked if he is hopeful the race can at least be better, the 40-year-old Briton replied: "Praying, more like! Trying to bond with this car on a single lap is something that I am finding very difficult at the moment.
"But we don't give up. When there's a will there's a way, we keep pushing, keep trying, have got some amazing support so just keep working hard.”
Charles Leclerc not happy despite P4
Leclerc once again got everything out of his Ferrari on his way to fourth behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Mercedes’ George Russell.
However, the Monegasque was far from pleased, lamenting Ferrari’s overall lack of grip and performance as he ended up 0.376s off the pace.
“I’m far from pleased, I’m very disappointed overall,” Leclerc explained.
“When you do everything you can with the car and that ends up P4 it’s just frustrating and disappointing. But that is what is capable with that car for the moment.
“I can change the limitations going from oversteer or understeer but at the end of the day we just don’t have enough grip to bring the speed that they [rivals] are carrying.
“It’s disappointing because we expected more from a track like this. We’re just missing.”
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