Hamilton revisited by the ghosts of Sochi in Monaco
Mercedes this afternoon accepted that Lewis Hamilton’s shock failure to fight for pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix, and resultant 14h place start, was down to problems they encountered with the set-up of his car.
While the Ferrari drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel battled with Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen for the position that is so important here, Hamilton was revisited by the ghosts of Sochi as he struggled for grip and never looked like a contender on a circuit where he has
previously dominated.
Bottas missed the pole by 0.045s after experiencing lesser problems of his own in practice, but Hamilton was 1.928s away after a disastrous qualifying session followed problems on Thursday afternoon and Saturday morning.
"We couldn't get the set-up right on Lewis's car, therefore he had a disastrous qualifying," non-executive chairman Niki Lauda admitted. “Bottas's car was better, very close to the second place. With his we're happy, with Lewis’s, not at all.
"We have to analyse it, check carefully what the difference is between the two cars and why the whole setup worked on one car and not on the other."
Hamilton struggled all through the first session. As Verstappen narrowly beat Vettel, with 1m 13.078s to 1m 13.090s, Raikkonen was third from Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Bottas. Hamilton complained that his rear tyres were overheating and was only 10th, six-tenths off the pace. In the second session he only just saved his car from crashing on the entry to Casino Square, and soon pitted complaining that it lacked grip. He was then delayed by a random mandatory weight check, and went into what looked like a session-saving lap with only a minute left. His first and second sector times were coloured green, indicating personal bests and potential improvement on the 1m 14.106s banker lap that he had done early on, but as he sped into the final sector he came across rookie Stoffel Vandoorne’s McLaren Honda parked in the wall, and yellow flags waving.
“Am I out?” he asked his crew as he was obliged to slow down. He was told that he was. But he admitted that he would still have had problems even without that incident.
"I think I would have struggled. That lap may have just got me into the top 10 and Q3, and then I probably would have struggled to be in the top five with the pace that I had, with whatever issue I was having in the car. But it's great to see Valtteri was able to extract the performance of the car, it shows we're not terrible here. We'll just have to figure out why I couldn't be up there with him. I don't know, I've not spoken to the guys so I can't really pinpoint it at the moment. But it's an odd feeling, that's for sure."
Raikkonen’s pole position was his first in 129 races, since the French Grand Prix of 2008, when he also drove for Ferrari in his season as reigning world champion.
“It’s obviously the best place to start here,” he mumbled. “The car has felt good here, but the important thing is the race tomorrow.”
The Finn has never previously won here, and dismissed suggestions that Vettel’s points lead might persuade the Ferrari team to order him to let the German take his third win of the season.
Hamilton wasn’t the only disappointed Briton. On his return to active duty in place of Fernando Alonso, who is competing in today’s Indianapolis 500 for McLaren Andretti Honda, Jenson Button qualified a superb ninth but will drop to the back of the grid with 15 penalty places after his McLaren Honda needed a new MGU-H energy recovery system and turbocharger before this morning’s practice session.
"It doesn't matter how many races you've done or not, it still hurts," the 2009 champion and race winner said. "They told me yesterday – I was so excited looking ahead to qualifying because Thursday went really well.
"To be P9, I'm very happy and I've enjoyed the weekend a lot. It's my last qualifying session, and probably one of my most enjoyable. I haven't missed F1, I've had such a good six months, then I got back in the car and absolutely loved it. I was told to have fun and enjoy it and I definitely have – not just driving the car, but the whole F1 atmosphere."
"I've definitely been driving within myself, which is a shame, but you have to around here because otherwise you're in the wall.
"It's very difficult for me, getting the penalty, but I enjoyed myself immensely."