Lewis Hamilton was deeply unhappy with his performance in the Canadian Grand Prix, branding it one of his worst showings in his 341-race career.
He rose from seventh on the grid to finish fourth. However he lost the final podium place to his team mate with two laps to go and also went off earlier in the race.On a weekend where his team mate started from pole position, Hamilton was deeply disappointed with his efforts. “It was just, over the weekend, a really poor performance from myself,” he told Sky.
“Some other things came into it yesterday, but mostly myself. And then today, just one of the worst races that I’ve driven. Just lots of mistakes.
“But of course, if I’d qualified better I’d’ve been in a much better position. So it is what it is.”
However Hamilton was encouraged by the performance of his Mercedes, which has benefited from a series of upgrades in recent races.
“I will go back to the drawing board on the positive note,” he said. “Big thank you to everyone back at the factory for progressing this car because it is becoming a car we can fight with and that’s a real positive going into this next part of the season.
“I know we’ll have hopefully some more upgrades coming along the way so it’s going to be a close battle and if I get my head on right I will get better results at some stage.”
Russell finished third but believes he could have fought for victory had he not tangled with Oscar Piastri while trying to overtake him, which allowed Hamilton to briefly get ahead. Hamilton agreed Mercedes had a potentially race-winning car in Canada.
“I think this weekend the car was capable of winning,” he said. “That’s why it’s not such a great feeling. But we’ll take the points and just keep moving and keep trying.”
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Red Andy (@red-andy)
9th June 2024, 22:19
The biggest negative in terms of Hamilton’s race performance was his inability to get past Alonso in the early stages, which led to a massive gap opening up between him and the frontrunners. Fortunately for him that was erased by the safety car, and he leapfrogged Alonso in the pits. After that I thought he did fairly well with the opportunity once it had been handed to him, although a podium might have been achievable.
MXMXD (@mxmxd)
9th June 2024, 22:35
..But then again, no one was really able to pass (that is, without mistakes) at the beginning, unless they were like 2.5 seconds faster.
notagrumpyfan
10th June 2024, 14:54
You clearly missed Albon and Norris overtaking cars which weren’t that much slower earlier in the race.
Edvaldo
9th June 2024, 22:46
Nobody passes nobody when the track is drying and there’s only one dry line.
And to Alonso’s credit, he did a better job at protecting the dry line than Verstappen and Russell did against Norris.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
11th June 2024, 2:57
Lewis can’t overtake down the straight, but his teammate can. You could say Lewis is over the hill, but when hes got superior grip and he still cant overtake people down the straight you have to wonder if hes being handicapped vs his teammate.
Its quite ridiculous actually, last year Lewis couldn’t overtake his teammate down the straight, and this year he still cant.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
11th June 2024, 2:59
If I had to gander, I would surmise George has better deployment by about 25-50 bhp.
Edvaldo
9th June 2024, 22:21
Hamilton completely failed to take any advantage of stopping first for slicks.
He was catching Piastri then lost a lot, and i mean a lot of time when he caught a Sauber, probably Zhou, going slow on the dry line. It was easily 5 to 6 seconds.
Then he was catching again and made another mistake and all the progress was lost.
A bit like China 2009, the pace was there, but way too many small mistakes to make anything worth with it.
cdavman (@cdavman)
9th June 2024, 23:26
I’m surprised they didn’t pick up on this in the TV coverage. I saw it happening in the background. After the switch to slicks Hamilton was 2 seconds behind Piastri but they came up to lap Zhou (who had just exited the pits on slicks) between turns 2 and 3. Piastri got past, but Hamilton didn’t before turn 3, and Zhou then didn’t/ couldn’t get out of the way during the next few turns as he was struggling to keep the car in a straight line.
Hamilton lost about 5 seconds during that point. Had that not happened, he may have got Piastri way earlier and have been running minimum 4th before the next safety car was called.
O'Ray
10th June 2024, 10:00
Normally when Switching from wet to dry, Lewis tends to be one of the last set of drivers, but I was shocked that he came in early for the switch, I believe Lewis would have followed Norris around before pitting.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
11th June 2024, 3:00
The team used him to judge the tires by calling him in early.
An Sionnach
9th June 2024, 22:28
I don’t know, Lewis. Looks to me like it would have gone rather well had you gotten medium tyres for the last push.
Trasmix
9th June 2024, 22:30
Softs! He should have taken softs for the last stint!
MXMXD (@mxmxd)
9th June 2024, 22:35
Not sure those softs were good enough for more than 5 laps to be honest.
Postreader
9th June 2024, 23:29
True – but he still had a set of brand-new mediums.
Combined with the decision to pit arguably a couple laps too early for slicks, the strategists were really asleep at the wheel here.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th June 2024, 2:15
Was wondering about that since no one used them at all, but even so, putting hards for 13 laps is a strange decision.
O'Ray
10th June 2024, 10:05
Exactly, they cant tell me that they only had one medium
AndrewT (@andrewt)
10th June 2024, 15:45
Maybe he just didn’t have any other remaining sets in decent condition?
Ben-Hur (@ben-hur)
9th June 2024, 23:00
China & Brazil ’07 will be pretty hard to top, but keep trying
Tom
9th June 2024, 23:50
Everything I’ve seen this year shows me that Hamilton has completely lost his edge. Not surprising given his age, but Hamilton in his prime would have put that car on pole and won today.
7th is still his best qualifying result all year which is so poor. His defence has been extremely poor too. He also seems to be cracking under the pressure of a top 5 finish!
I hope he brings better form to Ferrari but fear this is now his best.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th June 2024, 2:17
You need to consider he’s been capable of being within half a tenth or less to russell in quali this year and if he had done that in this case it’s have been a better quali result, he just happened to have a bad quali when the car was at its best (which is unlike hamilton tbh).
He’s not 40 yet, which is usually when the decline starts to get worse, alonso is still driving well in general despite being even older, and even vettel drove better at aston than his last year at ferrari, so he might still do better next year.
Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
10th June 2024, 7:58
Actually I think Hamilton turns off when he has cars not preforming well and he is probably upset because he had a realistic shot at a win over the weekend but missed the opportunity.
We’ve seen that in the past as well, he can give up and drop back in some situations, but he can also be hungry like few others when he has a shot at a win.
This one somewhere in between.
Nick T.
10th June 2024, 9:19
Yes, Hamilton is easily demotivated. Kind of basically the opposite of Alonso (and even he seems a bit demotivated right now by AM backsliding pathetically). IMO, it’s one of the bigger strikes against Lewis. I also expect him to still be great if next year’s Ferrari is competitive. He curb stomped George last year. I don’t believe he’s lost all his speed over night.
I also don’t get how people think he drove so badly when he was right on George’s tail during the entire rest of the race. It just seemed George was willing to crash if necessary to get back by him. And Lewis wasn’t that motivated to get a third place.
O'Ray
10th June 2024, 10:09
I think he is demotivated about the this season and the car, and he doesn’t want to leave Mercedes on a sour taste, on a good day , he would have forced George on the grass or force his way past Alonso
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
10th June 2024, 11:53
I have always thought that Lewis’s biggest flaw is his tendency to go into a sulk when things aren’t just right for him.
I am hoping that next season Ferrari can give him the car he needs to get his hungry head on again as he can be a jolly good worker given the right tools ;)
Chris Coppulotta
10th June 2024, 11:08
He needs to call Angela.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
11th June 2024, 3:01
no, she left because she knows mercedes are sabotaging him and she can’t deal with that.
Janith
10th June 2024, 12:35
He would be back to his best once he has a 1 Second quicker car again over the rest of the grid. Imao.
André
10th June 2024, 21:11
At least when Mercedes was technically dominant (2014-2016), he had a decent teammate to make him earn his paycheck. In the subsequent years, 2017-2019 and 2021, there was nothing dominant about his car, and yet he won 3 titles. Would have been 4, if it wasn’t for the Abu Dhabi 2021 sham finale. 2020 was probably the easiest title out of 7. Strongest car, average teammate.
Mayrton
11th June 2024, 12:57
…. 2017 20 races, 12 wins, 15 poles, average winning margin 13.1s, Bottas 3rd. 2018 21 races, 11 wins, 13 poles, average winning margin 6.8s. 2019 21 races, 15 wins, 10 poles, 9 1-2s, average winning margin 11.8s, Bottas 2nd. I would say that is rather dominant especially given Bottas’ level of driving vs his contribution to these numbers plus ‘Valtteri, it’s James’.
Edvaldo
11th June 2024, 14:25
dude, c’mon. Everybody knows how 2018 was. Cold numbers are misleading and that’s the only thing that says that season was “dominating”, because it wasn’t.
Vettel making unforced mistakes on crucial times and losing races has nothing to do with Mercedes dominating the season. After Spa it was believed to be a completely open championship, they were tied at wins, 5-5. But after that Hamilton went to win 6 and Vettel melted completely never to return to his championship self.