Nico Rosberg calls out Lewis Hamilton’s ‘excuses’ for poor qualifying

Nico Rosberg has claimed that Lewis Hamilton is making ‘excuses’ for his poor qualifying displays so far during the 2024 F1 season.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton could only qualify 18th for Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix in what turned out to be a dreadful session in Shanghai.

Hamilton said he had made “massive changes” to his car’s set-up following a brilliant run to second behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in Saturday morning’s sprint race.

But former title rival and Mercedes teammate Rosberg was critical of Hamilton as he suffered his latest qualifying defeat to George Russell.

“George has mostly been in front of Lewis. 4-1 now, in qualifying,” the 2016 world champion said during Sky’s F1 coverage of qualifying.

“Lewis tends to say ‘yeah but we have different set-ups and such a big car difference’. That is his excuse, so far this year.

“Each time he says that, George says: ‘The last time I checked, the cars are pretty similar…’

“He has gone again, for that. So it’s interesting.”

Hamilton made an error on his final lap of Q1 with a lock up at the hairpin, which cost him around six tenths of a second.

Rosberg said the mistake “should be avoidable” for a driver of Hamilton's calibre.

“That is painful. That is seriously painful,” Rosberg added. “18th position, Lewis. You know that the wind is coming from the back.

“He’d had a great lap until then. It was really unnecessary to push the limit so much. For a seven-time world champion, that’s a mistake which should be avoidable.

“He had the brake balance too far forward. He lost at least four tenths in that moment, which easily would have put him through. Easily.

“That is a disaster.”