Lewis Hamilton recently expressed his frustration regarding a yellow flag incident in Sprint Qualifying that he believes cost him the pole position for the United States Grand Prix Saturday race.
During the Sprint qualifying session held at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, Hamilton was on a flying lap that he felt had the potential to secure him pole position.
The Six-time United States Grand Prix race winner appeared to be in competitive form as he finished third in SQ3 and second in SQ2. But in the crucial final segment, the Brit failed to replicate the pace on his last attempt, dropping to seventh behind Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas.
Just as he approached Turn 12, a yellow flag was waved due to an incident involving Franco Colapinto, who had gone off track. The timing of the caution was particularly unfortunate for Hamilton, as it forced him to lift off the throttle, effectively ruining what could have been a record-setting lap.
In his post-qualifying comments, Lewis Hamilton described the situation as “unlucky,” stating that he had been on pace to deliver a time that would have placed him at the front of the grid.
“Yeah, just got unlucky with the yellow flag and that’s what it is,” the Mercedes driver said. “I was four-tenths up.”
George Russell’s second-place finish behind Sprint Qualifying pole winner Max Verstappen demonstrated Mercedes’ W15 potential, adding to Hamilton’s disappointment. However, he found some reprieve in the team’s most recent upgrades which showed an instant improvement.
“The good thing is the team’s made a step with the car, the upgrade has clearly worked,” he added.
“I’m really grateful to everyone back at the factory for all the hard work over this period of time because it’s been a tough slog for everyone to get the upgrade to make sure that they’re working and so yeah it’s not the end of the day.
“Tomorrow we got another chance. We did a great job to make changes to the car and it’s always a bit of a gamble because you don’t know whether or not it’s going to work, the changes that you make.
“You hope they do what you aim to do with them and as soon as I got out the car was like night and day.”
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