Lewis Hamilton apologises to Mercedes after missing golden opportunity at Monaco GP | F1 | Sport

Lewis Hamilton issued an apology to his team after qualifying seventh at the Monaco Grand Prix. The Silver Arrows star showed plenty of pace all weekend but was only able to put his W15 onto the fourth row of the grid.

The seven-time world champion was in the top three of every practice session leading up to qualifying and wasn’t far from the front in both Q1 and Q2.

However, when the chips were down on the final runs of Q3, Hamilton struggled to make an impact. Only Alex Albon, Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly qualified behind the Mercedes driver in the final session of the day.

After bringing his car to the line and qualifying in seventh place, Hamilton came onto the radio to say: “I’m sorry guys.” That result means that he has now been out-qualified by team-mate George Russell in all but one of the eight races in 2024 thus far.

Hamilton addressed his qualifying struggles relative to Russell ahead of this weekend. The legendary Brit is almost always the faster driver in the Grand Prix but has more often than not been hamstrung by poor displays on Saturdays.

“I wouldn’t say it’s not been a priority, but the whole weekend has been the priority to improve everywhere,” he said. “But particularly since the end of last year and then all this year, it has been pretty bad on a Saturday, but it is what it is.

“I’m going to continue to work on it and so far I haven’t gotten to a strong place, but there are plenty of races left to sort that out. There’s plenty of time to iron out all of the creases in my performance and the car’s. I’m not getting too hung up on it, my race performance is pretty decent, so fortunately I can fall back on that.”

Hamilton will start behind former arch-rival and current championship leader Max Verstappen. The Dutchman has struggled all weekend and despite showing improved pace in qualifying, couldn’t challenge Charles Leclerc for pole position.

Verstappen was well-placed to secure a top-three finish, but hit the wall at Turn One on his final flying lap, forcing him to abandon the attempt and resigning him to a P6 starting grid slot.