Alex Brundle explains radio message that left Lewis Hamilton ‘out of sync’ in Azerbaijan Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton endured a difficult Azerbaijan Grand Prix after being forced to start from the pit lane due to a power unit change on his Mercedes.

The seven-time world champion initially qualified in seventh but was forced to start from the pit lane when Mercedes engineers discovered an anomaly on his power unit.

It was expected to be an easy recovery for Lewis Hamilton given he was running a fresh engine, but it proved to be a difficult race for Mercedes as they struggled with overheating surface temperatures throughout the Azerbaijan GP.

At one point during the race, Hamilton could be heard over team radio saying to his engineer Peter Bonnington: “You’ve seen how I have to drive this thing!?”

Hamilton’s teammate George Russell also suffered from the same issues and struggled to progress, with both being handed a lifeline due to a late crash between Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez.

The pair collided in the closing stages of the race, promoting Russell to third and Hamilton into the points after he made an opportunistic move on Nico Hulkenberg. Discussing Hamilton’s race on F1 TV, Alex Brundle explained why Hamilton was left “out of sync” with the cars he was racing.

Lewis Hamilton had to manage his Mercedes and could not attack

Mercedes appeared to turn a corner with the W15 having won three races out of four before the summer break, but Baku showed there are still problems impacting their drivers.

Hamilton could be heard complaining about tyre temperature issues during qualifying, and was left dejected when Russell managed to overtake him in their qualifying head-to-head this season.

Brundle believes this temperature management severely impacted Hamilton’s ability to progress and finish ahead of cars that are usually slower than Mercedes, including Williams and Aston Martin.

“What he’s doing there is talking directly to the team and saying ‘Look at the telemetry data, how I’m having to drive the car to keep the surface temps where it needs to be’ and no driver likes to manage the car throughout a race,” said Brundle.

“It was effective, it was getting the job done, but you can’t attack like that and it’s really difficult to race wheel-to-wheel when you’re so out of sync with how everyone around you is driving their race cars.”

Lewis Hamilton previously warned Mercedes over temperature issues

Hamilton has previously warned his team to look into a potential tyre temperature issue when he asked them to investigate a tyre blanket problem at the Canadian Grand Prix in June.

Mercedes later went on to tell Hamilton to follow Russell in managing the rubber more carefully during the races, ensuring that he does not overheat the tyres.

Russell was left “infuriated” by the whole situation and blamed Pirelli and felt “serious conversations” needed to be had over their tyres.

The Briton finished the race 20 seconds behind second-placed Charles Leclerc, having struggled to keep up with Perez and Sainz.