Lewis Hamilton described his weekend at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as “horrible”. That crash was the least of his worries as after the race, he was faced with catastrophic performance degradation. It was the veteran driver’s, now 40 years old, best result of the season in the 70-lap event. Only one week prior, he’d posted a fifth-place finish in Bahrain. His place in the standings exposes the cracks past the surface. He sits in seventh overall in the drivers’ championship, 50 points behind the leader.
Even the great Alexander Hamilton was once dejected by how slowly he was moving. The truth, he said, was he couldn’t really identify why he wasn’t having success. “It was horrible, not enjoyable at all. I was just sliding around. It’s pretty bad,” he shared with reporters after the race. He knew that he’d put in the effort to raise his game through the weekend. He sensed there was no one thing in particular to point to for his lackluster speed.
The challenges Hamilton experienced were only made worse by a broader difficulty getting into the car mind-set. “I was struggling to feel the car beneath me,” he noted. As he took stock of the historic race and the road ahead, he shared some thoughts with us. With frankness, he conceded that he had no magic bullets for his underwhelming performances. Unfortunately, right now there is no solution so this is how it will remain for the final months of this year. It’s going to be excruciating,” Hamilton said, suggesting a grim picture as the campaign moves on.
Unfortunately, when looking ahead to the next race in Miami, Hamilton expected more of the same trouble. I don’t think we’re going to do very good [sic] at the next race,” he said, highlighting his worries about being able to stay competitive at the series’ next races. He focused on the need to cut the 50-point deficit in the championship race. … certainly understood that it’s a big lift, a big hurdle to jump over.
Despite these obstacles, Hamilton is determined and optimistic, in terms of both his own performance and the potential for things to get better. He stated, “I feel like we maximized everything we could have this weekend,” illustrating his commitment to pushing through this tough phase in his career.
While Hamilton works his way around these obstacles, he is not the only one having a tough time with qualifying pace. Charles Leclerc’s legendary energy run culminated in a third-place finish in Saudi Arabia. He underscored the huge importance of qualifying to help with race pace. “We are close on the race pace. Free air dictates a little bit who is going to win the race,” Leclerc explained, suggesting that qualifying will play a critical role in determining race outcomes this season.
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