Mercedes F1, explaining Lewis Hamilton's qualifying failure in Jeddah[F1-Gate .com]

Mercedes F1 outlined the cause of Lewis Hamilton’s sluggish performance after losing Q1 in Saudi Arabian Grand Prix qualifying.

Lewis Hamilton suffered a disastrous qualifying performance at the F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. For seven-time F1 World Champion Hamilton, the Q1 defeat was the first in five years since 2017.

Lewis Hamilton had wirelessly apologized to Mercedes F1 after being knocked out in Q1, but trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin was unlucky when the team’s attempt to push the boundaries of the setup failed. I explained that it was a result.

“Basically, I don’t really understand the car as well as at the end of last season. I have only two races with a new car,” Andrew Shovlin said in a Youtube video looking back at the Mercedes F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

“We’re always looking for a setup with Lewis and trying to find a direction to provide performance. From Friday to Saturday we found a good direction and he was able to try it in his third practice session.”

“We did a lot of that in the qualifying session, but in the end it was a bit too extreme. From the beginning he lacked a rear grip.”

Andrew Shovlin says Jeddah’s low-grip, error-free traits caused the driver to have a knock-on effect.

“Jeddah is a street circuit. It takes a lot of confidence. It’s very fast and the walls are very close. Without the rear grip, the driver wouldn’t have that confidence,” added Andrew Shovlin.

“In the end, we pushed it a bit too far, but it was a useful learning exercise.”

Popping, which has had a serious impact on Mercedes’ W13, has so far been a hindrance to releasing the car’s performance.

Andrew Shovlin warns that current performance levels may become the standard for the Mercedes F1 team until the issue is resolved.

“Basically, the problem right now is that the car isn’t fast enough, and if it’s not perfect, it’s going to be at risk in those sessions,” said Andrew Shovlin.

“We need to build faster cars as soon as possible.”