Mercedes GPS data reveals ‘root’ of Lewis Hamilton’s qualifying frustrations

Mercedes can understand the “root” of Lewis Hamilton’s qualifying frustrations at the F1 Italian Grand Prix having analysed their GPS data.

After topping the timesheets in two of the three practice sessions at Monza, Hamilton was only sixth-fastest in qualifying. It came a week after he was knocked out in Q2 at the Dutch Grand Prix, qualifying only 12th.

The seven-time world champion said he was “absolutely furious” with his performance and added Mercedes “deserved better”, feeling he had thrown away a shot at pole position.

Mercedes’ head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin revealed that the team’s data confirmed just how close Hamilton had been to challenging for pole.

“I’m sure we could’ve done a bit better,” Shovlin said. “The root of Lewis’ frustrations is evident when you look at the GPS data to see that going into that final corner, we were within half a tenth of Lando and his pole position lap, but then the last corner for Lewis didn’t work out particularly well.

“He lost a bit of time there, and had it not been for that, he could’ve easily been on the front row if not challenging for pole.”

George Russell outpaced Mercedes teammate Hamilton for the 12th time this year as he took third on the grid, behind the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

“Not a dissimilar story with George as well, he was going pretty close going into that final corner, it was a bit better for him and that earned him the P3 position,” Shovlin added.

“But what we’ve seen in the recent races is that fights for the front of the grid is actually extending all the way down to P7, P8. You can get so many cars there within two tenths of a second, and that’s the sort of margin where it really comes down to whether the drivers put that lap together.

“And frustratingly for Lewis, he’d shown great pace in Q2, didn’t quite get it right for that final run in Q3, and you can drop all the way down to P6. It’s just how tight it is at the moment.”