Lewis Hamilton answers criticism of F1 qualifying form: “I’m not getting too hung up on it”

Lewis Hamilton isn’t too concerned by his poor F1 qualifying form ahead of this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix.

Hamilton has out-qualified Mercedes teammate George Russell just once in 2024.

It means Russell is 6-1 up in the qualifying head-to-head.

Hamilton has only been out-qualified by a teammate once across a season in his entire F1 career (Nico Rosberg in 2014).

However, since the back end of last year, Hamilton has struggled with his one-lap pace.

Conversely, there’s no doubt Hamilton remains among the best on race day, particularly when it comes to managing his tyres.

Speaking to select media including Crash.net on Thursday in Monaco, Hamilton responded to questions about his underwhelming qualifying displays.

“I wouldn’t say it’s not been a priority but the whole weekend has been the priority to improve everywhere,” he said. “Particularly since the end of last year and all this year has been pretty bad on the Saturday.

“I will continue to work on it. So far, I haven’t got it to a great place. There’s plenty of races to sort it out. There’s plenty of time to iron out all the creases in my performance and in the car’s.

“I am not getting too hung up on it. My race performance is still decent so fortunately I can fall back on that for now.”

Mercedes have endured a difficult start to the campaign, failing to finish on the podium in any of the first seven races.

It marks their worst start to a season since 2011, where they ended the year podium-less.

Hamilton confirmed that Mercedes have no new upgrades for this weekend but revealed he’s feeling “more excited” heading to Monaco compared to the last two years.

“Well we don’t have any upgrades this weekend,” he added. “We had the package spaced over the last two races. We have our highest downforce level which everyone has here and we have an evolved wing.

“Otherwise, we don’t know where we’re going to be this weekend. I am definitely feeling more excited about it compared to the previous two cars as those two weren’t so great. This one’s a real work in progress so hopefully it should be a lot better here and than it was last year.”