Lewis Hamilton denounced the Shock Q2 knockout at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix for his poor team strategy back to the tire decision on Friday.
Hamilton was the fastest driver at the end of practice on Friday and was expected to challenge poles on Saturday, but instead he would tie for 12th after lifting 0.395 seconds to miss the top 10 berth. The unfortunate outcome was that Ferrari chose to choose to send Hamilton on a single soft tire for two flight laps during the Q2. Not only were neither laps sufficient for the third quarter, they weren’t faster than Hamilton’s best times.
Meanwhile, teammate Charles Leclerc was able to skate to the top 10 after switching from a set of soft tires to a set of more stable media for the final ride.
Hamilton preferred the same tyre strategy, but said the team’s Friday practice program didn’t have enough medium set to pull it apart.
“The team chose to run me in the media at FP2,” he explained. “Charles was meant to do it in the second run of FP2, but since nobody else was on them, we chose to keep it.
“There were basically three media in every top 10 (except me) and I knew the media would be faster.
Hamilton said the team preferred to save the remaining two medium tires for two runs in the third quarter.
“Well, we have to get to the third quarter first,” Hamilton said. “So it wasn’t the best run in the end. I’m definitely disappointed.”
But Britton admitted that he wasn’t as comfortable in the car on Saturday as he did on Friday, and pointed to a team-driven setup change, which left him confused.
“One of the things that took into consideration was the little direction the team was pushing to use some of the setup,” he said. “It didn’t feel as good as the FP2. But it felt like we’ve made a lot of progress and we looked pretty strong.
“To be honest, I thought I was going to fight for the top three today. I thought I might get a pole today. I haven’t felt it all year round. It’s definitely hard to be on the 12th day, but like I said, I don’t feel it from my driving.
But his teammate Leclerc had the exact opposite feedback after his own qualified disappointment. The Monaco native, who won the previous four pole positions in Baku in a row, crashed in the third quarter without time in the 15th quarter, taking 10th place.
Leclerc said the overnight changes made on Saturday improved the car, and he lamented the switch from soft tires to medium despite prequalifying his predictions that it would become a better performer.
“I made a huge change to qualifying the car, but in the first quarter I felt much better. Every lap on the soft made me feel much better,” he said. “We then proceeded to the medium we held because we thought it was the best tires. Today, at these temperatures it was impossible to turn them on.
“I don’t think this is the reason, whether it’s difficult or not. I think we lack a lot of pace in the medium. I was probably 0.7 or 0.8 seconds away before the mistake (touching the wall in turn 4 of Q2), and I was pushing like crazy.
“I had the same perspective as Lewis. I thought there was an advantage to getting into Quali in the medium, and I put them on.
“We see it getting off track because it gets so hard, but looking at Q2, I saw the first run, barely ran in my medium. I went many times and long, and it was soft and I didn’t feel much of a feeling.
Despite his disappointment, Hamilton said his racing goals remain the same.
“My pace was decent in FP2. I was fastest in the race pace, so I really hope there’s a decent pace tomorrow,” he said. “I’m a straight speed good. We should be able to fight cars. There’s a lot of things that can happen here with a safe car. All kinds of strategies can really work.
“I’m still trying to get into the top three. That’s been my goal all week. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
