Formula One: Lewis Hamilton Comments After Disappointing Exit From Q1 At The Austin Grand Prix

As Formula One returned to action following almost a month long hiatus following the Singapore Grand Prix, 7-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton is not having the best of weekends as he made an early exit in qualifying. Lewis Hamilton was disqualified in Q1. Lewis Hamilton will be starting right behind his former teammate Valtteri Bottas in P18. Lewis Hamilton's W15 failed to perform up to standards in the blazing heat in Austin, Texas. As for Hamilton's teammate George Russell, he qualified and will be starting sixth on the grid.  

Lewis Hamilton On Disappointing Qualifying 

"The Sprint was a difficult session for us with the car not feeling as strong as it did yesterday. The temperature was warmer than on Friday and that didn’t seem to suit us. We made some changes ahead of Qualifying to counteract that and try to push us in a direction that could get the car closer to how it felt on Friday, but we continued to struggle. 

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"Tomorrow will be difficult for us starting P19. It will be hard to come across opportunities, but I will be giving it my all to move forward," said Lewis Hamilton following the qualifying session at the Austin Grand Prix. 

Mercedes Engineer Gives Insight On Lewis Hamilton's W15 

Mercedes engineer Andrew Shovlin claimed that due to the changes that were made to Lewis Hamilton's setup were the reason why he was not able to extract performance out of his car. 

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"We also found a broken part on Lewis' front suspension post Sprint and that definitely impacted the overall balance. In an effort to get the car back to the sweet spot we had on Friday, we made some set-up adjustments ahead of Qualifying.

"Sadly these didn't have the desired effect. A consistent balance continued to elude Lewis although he was unfortunate to be knocked out in Q1 having been impacted by traffic in sector one," said Andrew Shovlin following the Austin Grand Prix.