Lewis Hamilton has apologised to his Ferrari team “for not doing the job” after only qualifying ninth for the Bahrain Grand Prix, with the Briton adding “I’ve got to do the talking on the track” in Sunday’s race.
The seven-time World Champion struggled to match the pace of team mate Charles Leclerc at the Bahrain International Circuit during Qualifying, finishing nearly six-tenths in arrears.
READ MORE: Piastri beats Russell and Leclerc to pole position during Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying
It also marked the worst Qualifying performance of the season for the Briton, who started from the same position 12 months ago for Mercedes.
“On a positive our car is clearly a lot better than what I’m delivering with it and Charles [Leclerc] did a great job with it today, so big apologies to the team for not doing the job,” said Hamilton after the session.
Hamilton struggled for pace in Bahrain Qualifying
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Hamilton explained that a radio message, where he said “I’m sorry” immediately after his final lap, was in relation to his poor performance on Saturday, as he has struggled to replicate his pace from the pole and victory he scored in the China Sprint.
“It was just about my performance, my poor performance. There’s no reason, I’m just not doing the job,” he said.
In contrast, Leclerc registered Ferrari’s best Qualifying performance of the season as he finished third behind polesitter Oscar Piastri and George Russell in Bahrain.
Leclerc will start second, however, after a one-place grid drop for Russell as he and Mercedes team mate Kimi Antonelli were sent out into the pit lane too early in Q2.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect P3,» Leclerc said before the penalties had been issued. «I knew that in Q3 there was some lap time, I knew that in Q1 and Q2 I just had to be patient and wait for the track to come towards me in Q3, which was a bit tricky because at the beginning of Q3 everything felt really bad with the old tyres, but then as soon as we put the new tyres [on] it was quite a bit better.
Leclerc claimed the best grid position of the season so far for Ferrari with P3
“I’m happy, I did not expect it but I think it’s a result of [how] we explored quite a lot of extreme set-ups in the last few weekends and it felt like I found my way a little bit, and little by little I hope there will be more performance to extract from this car in the weekends to come.”
Ferrari brought several upgrades this weekend in a bid to close the gap to McLaren, which Leclerc feels have made a difference in Bahrain so far.
“The team have pushed like crazy to try and bring upgrades here. I don’t think it’s the best track to have these upgrades done but it’s always good, it’s a small gain but it’s not a big one,” he said.
“Hopefully next week it will be a bit more of a step. But again, I think if we are P3 today, especially considering such fine margins with P4, the upgrades helped.”
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