Struggling Hamilton in Qatar: ‘I’ve still got it’

Lewis Hamilton believes he’s “still got it” despite struggling to match his Mercedes teammate George Russell at yet another qualifying session on Saturday at the Qatar Grand Prix.

The seven-time champion has not qualified in the top five of the grid since the Singapore Grand Prix in September and has been beaten by Russell 23-6 across both qualifying and sprint qualifying sessions this year.

Russell will start from pole in Sunday’s grand prix after Max Verstappen was penalised by stewards a few hours after qualifying and dropped one grid place for “driving unnecessarily slowly,” a breach of Article 33.4 of the sporting regulations, as he prepared for his pole position lap.

After securing seventh in sprint qualifying on Friday, Hamilton admitted “I’m definitely not fast anymore”, leading to speculation that he had lost some of his self-belief.

In Saturday’s qualifying session for the full-length grand prix he improved to sixth on the grid, but had a slightly bigger gap to teammate Russell of 0.491 seconds.

“I mean I’m slow, I’m half a second off my teammate in the same car,” he said on Saturday.

But when it was put to Hamilton that his Las Vegas race performance, in which he came from 10th on the grid to finish second, was proof he was still competitive, he said: “Yeah, I know I’ve still got it.

“Just, the car won’t go faster at the moment. I definitely know I’ve got it still. It’s not a question in my mind. Looking forward to the end [of the season].”

Hamilton will leave Mercedes for Ferrari at the end of this season in one of the biggest driver moves in Formula 1 history.

He will be teammates with Charles Leclerc in 2025, who has been a mainstay at Ferrari since 2019.

The two drivers found themselves racing for position in Saturday’s sprint race, with Leclerc coming out on top after a close battle through Turns 1 and 2.

“It was alright, it was fair. Nice and close,” Hamilton said of the battle. “I didn’t defend, I should have defended but I didn’t.

“He was a bit quicker than me and probably going to come by anyways. If I’m in the same position again tomorrow, I’ll put more of a fight up, for sure.”

Source: www.espn.com