Lewis Hamilton blames wind for Australian GP flop as Toto Wolff says ‘there’s no excuse’

After a forgettable qualifying session in Melbourne, Lewis Hamilton will begin the Australian Grand Prix in eleventh place, frustrating Mercedes boss Toto Wolff once more.

Lewis Hamilton lamented the wind and his unreliable Mercedes, which unsettled the vehicle and resulted in a terrible qualifying effort for the Australian Grand Prix.

Hamilton qualified nowhere in Melbourne’s Q3, and he will line up eleventh on the grid for Sunday’s race. Furthermore, despite performing well in practice earlier in the day, he was perplexed by his own incapacity to get the most out of his car.

He stated: “We were right there with those guys and we didn’t really understand why, so it was strange even though it felt great in FP3.” However, during qualifying, the car’s inconsistent performance truly confused everyone.

“George Russell performed admirably today. I must attempt to perform better tomorrow because that is the reality.” Russell did make it to the end of qualifying and placed his Mercedes seventh on the starting grid, surpassing Hamilton for the fourth time in a row.

When asked about his W15’s issues, Hamilton said, “There’s a long list.” Our car seems to be hovering near the edge. The wind picks up here in the afternoon, just as it did in FP2. The car gets much more unstable as the wind picks up.

“The wind was calmer this morning, so it was nice, but as it picked up, it became more unstable. I’m not sure why, but the others seemed to pick up the pace in qualifying. However, even though we used less fuel in qualifying than in Formula Three, it didn’t feel the same. Although none of the team is enjoying it, we will continue to work hard.”

Toto Wolff, the team principal, concurred that setting up Mercedes vehicles correctly remains a challenge. However, he made sure to express his displeasure with his drivers’ performance.

“It’s particularly disappointing because we were within a tenth in FP3,” he stated. Although the circumstances were slightly different, there is no justification. You can fit narrowly in or out of the window of our challenging car.

We just need to keep working on it, as much as I annoy myself by saying this so much. We’ve tried our hardest, but it’s not good enough where we are at this point.

“Getting closer to Red Bull in the short term is an illusion, but I still have to think this car is capable of more. It wasn’t a bad car this morning, but we still need to work on it because it’s very difficult to enter and exit the performance window.”