Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Silverstone, 2022

Mercedes “pretty disappointed” after missing chance to get Hamilton on front row

2022 British Grand Prix

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Mercedes believe a tactical error in the closing stages of qualifying cost them the chance to get Lewis Hamilton on the front row of the grid for this weekend’s race at Silverstone.

Hamilton was among the front-running drivers in the wet session after Mercedes brought a further package of new parts for its W13 this weekend.

“The team have worked incredibly hard to bring some upgrades this weekend and we had a bunch of furniture around the car,” said Hamilton. “The car has improved a little bit, but we still have bouncing in high-speed corners, which is where particularly the Red Bull is pulling away from us.

“But in the rain, we were fighting for the front row. And all the way up until that second-to-last lap, we were up there. I was asked to back off and go for the last lap, but then it rained. So it’s just a bit unfortunate, I guess.”

Hamilton said they chose to abandon his penultimate lap in Q3 in order to increase the available power from his battery.

“I wanted to go to a more racy power mode for the last lap and charge the battery, et cetera. And as we did that, then it rained a little bit more and the last lap was messed up.”

After qualifying a second off pole position, Hamilton said he was convinced he could have got on the front row.

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“I was really, really so hopeful because we’ve got this incredible crowd and all of a sudden I was in the fight, so I was feeling great. I think I was second by 0.02 or something. So I was like, ‘yeah, I can definitely go quicker than that’.

“Then I was, I think, two-tenths up, then they said back off and go again. And then the next lap was not as good.”

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said the team could definitely have qualified higher than fifth for Hamilton and eighth for team mate Russell.

“Quali was looking okay until really the last laps,” he said. “I believe that we had a car that was good enough for front row or maybe top three, but in the end it didn’t come together at all.

“Therefore I’m pretty disappointed actually with the result because I believe we could have gone faster.”

Hamilton’s belief they could have taken a front row start was “not optimistic”,” said Wolff. “If we would have continued with the consecutive laps and given up a little bit on engine mode towards the end, I believe that we would have qualified for top three positions. At the end you never know, but I think that lap would have been pretty good.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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13 comments on “Mercedes “pretty disappointed” after missing chance to get Hamilton on front row”

  1. After qualifying a second off pole position, Hamilton said he was convinced he could have got on the front row.

    not so sure about that. During the lap Verstappen did a 360, lewis put in the same time as Verstappen. Same conditions, same time..
    So there still was a lot on the table.
    Looking at the lap leclerc was fast but spinned and caused a yellow flag that hindered the much faster lap by verstappen. The best lewis could hope for was a 4th place..

  2. Well, timing was very important, and it seems they got that wrong.

  3. Naughty Neutral
    2nd July 2022, 18:39

    The fans in Silverstone got what they deserved.

    1. Why do you watch sports if you can’t handle some booing?

    2. Andy (@andyfromsandy)
      3rd July 2022, 10:03

      Didn’t they boo after qualifying?

      They knew they were going to boo so that meant the grid was preordained?

  4. No way he was going to be front row.

  5. When I saw verstappen spin and then go off, and saw Leclerc was mostly MIA, I was thinking Hamilton or maybe Alonso was going to stick it on pole and shock everyone, perhaps with a timely yellow flag here and there. But it was just a normal 2022 grid in the end.

    1. Well, Sainz on pole is not ‘normal’, as it is his first. And Latifi was the big surprise of this session.
      The rest was business as usual in 2022, indeed.

  6. There’s no point to start even on pole if your car is 0.6 at least slower than the frontrunners. At least MB did a step up for this race but has a lot to do to catch them if this will ever gonna happen this season.

    1. I agree, getting pole and then the race starts and you watch the red bulls and ferrrari just past you by on the straights knowing you cant do anything about it.

    2. Peter Windsor has the race pace looking competitive among the top three teams. Let’s hope for a six car scrap.

  7. This is only part of the story, it seems some of the teams are bending the rules to the surprise of Mercedes. No teams have been named, but it seems there are teams with ‘flexing floors’ operating outside the FIA rules.

    which begs the question why as it taken till now for this information to come out, and how will it affect the latter part of the championship. It even brings into questions the championship points to date.

    Check this out folks.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/motorsports/f1-flexi-floor-exploit-revelations-a-shocker-says-mercedes/ar-AAZ8IEz?li=BBoPWjQ

    I expect Racefans to make an official posting on this soon.

  8. Mercedes taking the responsibility whenever their driver, especially Hamilton, doesn’t make the corner. Team-spirit for sure, getting a bit tiring nevertheless

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