Lewis Hamilton stayed in 11th place in the qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in Formula 1, meaning he did not enter Q3 – unlike the other Mercedes driver, George Russell, who secured the fourth position at the start.
The seven-time world champion said in a statement that, despite having the same adjustments as his teammate on the W14, he has a lack of performance that he needs to understand: ‘Today was a challenging session for me. I have difficulties with the car’s setup here in Abu Dhabi this weekend, even though our cars are set up the same, so we need to understand what is causing the lack of performance on my side of the garage. Today George managed to extract the most from the car, finishing in fourth.’
Despite the qualifying result, Hamilton does not give up and emphasizes his determination to end 2023 with a good result in Yas Marina: ‘It takes a lot of effort to not reach Q3, so we need to dig deep and try our best to climb tomorrow. The team here and at the factory deserve a good result for the last race of the season, so we will work hard as always and hopefully that will pay off and we can find improvements for tomorrow.’
