Lewis Hamilton described his Mercedes W14 as “a bit of a nightmare to drive” after qualifying in sixth place for Formula 1’s Mexico City Grand Prix.
Mercedes’ performance fluctuated throughout qualifying, with Hamilton a low-key seventh in Q1, before leading the way at the conclusion of Q2.
But Hamilton took only sixth at the end of Q3, while team-mate George Russell was further back in eighth position.
“I’ve been struggling all weekend with the car and it has been a bit of a nightmare to drive,” said Hamilton.
“We’ve had to try and put the performance together piece by piece, and we made good changes going into qualifying so that I was much happier with the car.
“Q1 and Q2 weren’t looking too bad – especially the second run in Q2. But the car is just really peaky – sometimes it’s in the window, sometimes not. And I couldn’t squeeze anything more out of it on that final lap.
“The race is definitely going to be a challenge: we will be overheating the tyres and the brakes, so it won’t be easy to battle the cars around us. I don’t really know what kind of race to expect but it’s going to be on a knife edge.”
Russell echoed Hamilton’s view and added that “we showed signs of strong pace at points, but we didn’t deliver when it counted.
“We lacked consistency today – some runs we were strong, others not, so it was a confusing picture. On the final run, we had one set of new tyres and tried something different on the out lap, and it didn’t work and the tyres weren’t in the window.”
