Lewis Hamilton “couldn’t care less” about P8 in latest Ferrari disappointment

Lewis Hamilton was left disappointed by Ferrari’s lack of pace in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Seven-time F1 world champion Hamilton was frustrated after he could only recover to eighth in Sunday’s grand prix in Baku after an underwhelming qualifying left him only P12 on the grid.

Hamilton finished one place ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc after a botched team order to swap positions, but was left lamenting Ferrari’s lack of competitiveness at a circuit they have been strong at in the past.

Asked how he was feeling after Sunday’s race, Hamilton replied: “Not good.

“We were slow. Ultimately a disappointing result. As I mentioned yesterday, from feeling so optimistic through practice. After P2, I felt so good in the car.

“I think we went in the wrong direction with the car but our ultimately pace was just not on par with the guys up ahead of us.

“Qualifying clearly is so important, if you look at where the Williams was. They did a great job, congratulations to them. What an amazing result.

“I’m happy I moved forwards from 12th but I couldn’t really care less with that position.”

Did Ferrari miss an opportunity in Baku?

Ferrari started the weekend brightly with Hamilton leading a Ferrari 1-2 ahead of Leclerc in second practice on Friday. 

The Italian outfit's encouraging pace continued in final practice on Saturday morning but a strategy miscue led to Hamilton suffering elimination in the second part of qualifying, before Leclerc crashed in Q3, leaving the Monegasque down in 10th. 

Hamilton complained he was on the wrong tyre compound for the conditions as he was knocked out in Q2.

Qualifying ended up being critical this weekend in Baku, with overtaking proving particularly difficult.

Hamilton said Ferrari have improvements to make operationally after their P8-P9 finish. 

“Internally we will go and see what we could have done differently," Hamilton explained. 

“As I said yesterday, for sure operationally we could have done a better job. That’s something we need to work on.

“I felt like I made progress today. Out of our cars my pace was decent, but the others were just rapid. It was so hard to overtake here today. It was an unusual Baku race with not really much overtaking and really hard to follow.

“Definitely disappointed to come away with nothing.”

The poor result has seen Mercedes jump above Ferrari and move into second place in the constructors’ championship with seven races remaining.