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Lewis Hamilton voiced his frustration on the team radio after not being able to overtake the Alpine of Esteban Ocon at the 2024 F1 Chinese GP.
The Mercedes star has not been able to perform well in the 2024 F1 season. He is currently down in ninth place in the drivers' championship table with only 17 points in his hands. Mercedes as a whole has been struggling, with his teammate George Russell is in seventh place with only 25 points.
On the other hand, Alpine started the 2024 F1 season on the backfoot and has a slow package. This was particularly because they worked on a completely new platform for their future cars and are trying to learn about the car concept.
At the Chinese GP, Lewis Hamilton had a poor qualifying session, where he got eliminated in the Q1 session itself. He started the Grand Prix on Sunday from P18 on soft tires, aiming to make some ground early in the race. Though he managed to pass most of the backmarkers by lap 13, he was then stuck behind Esteban Ocon's Alpine for quite some time.
Lewis Hamilton was two seconds away from Ocon but was simply unable to close the gap even after several laps. Frustratingly, he exclaimed on the radio that he could not even pass the Alpine driver and stated that the Mercedes W15 was too slow.
"I can't even catch him mate. This car is so slow," Hamilton said (via f1tv.formula1.com).
Lewis Hamilton reflects on how setup experiments hampered his qualifying at the 2024 F1 Chinese GP
Lewis Hamilton recently explained how experimenting with the car setups ruined his 2024 F1 Chinese GP qualifying.
The seven-time world champion was eliminated in the Q1 session. Speaking to Sky Sports after qualifying, the Mercedes star explained that before the session, his and George Russell's Mercedes W15 was similar. However, his side of the garage tried to tinker with the setup, which did not bode well for them.
"Struggled. I made massive changes into qualifying. It wasn’t too bad in some places. I couldn’t stop in Turn 14. It is what it is," Hamilton said.
"This morning, George [Russell] and I had very similar cars but this afternoon we’re trying to experiment still with the car so I went one way a long way and he went the other way just to see if we could find anything. That’s what we need to do at the moment but it didn’t work."
Between the two Mercedes drivers, George Russell is currently ahead in the drivers' championship, sitting seventh.
