Lewis Hamilton ‘absolutely furious’ after Italian GP qualifying error

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Lewis Hamilton was left ‘absolutely furious’ after making an error in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix which cost him a potential front-row start.

The Mercedes driver lines up sixth on the grid alongside Carlos Sainz, having set a lap that was 0.186s off the pole lap of Lando Norris.

His performance was delivered on the weekend when his success was finally announced at Mercedes in the form of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff felt was worth taking a risk on after missing out on Max Verstappen.

Lewis Hamilton was expected to get close to the McLaren’s having run in the top three for the majority of qualifying at Monza, but he was left disappointed with his performance when speaking on Sky Sports.

Lewis Hamilton left ‘furious’ over Monza qualifying

The seven-time world champion had shown pace in the third practice session when he set the fastest time and was around a tenth and a half quicker than Oscar Piastri.

Hamilton explained that he made a mistake at the beginning of his final timed lap in Q3, which set him on course for a disappointing result.

“I am furious, absolutely furious. I could have been on pole, at least on the front row. I just didn’t do the job. I lost a tenth and a half into Turn 1, and then a tenth in the last corner. No one to blame by myself,” said Hamilton.

Hamilton believes qualifying has been somewhat of a weakness this season, despite Mercedes appearing to finally extract pace from their W15.

“Qualifying has been my weakness for a minute now and I can’t figure it out. I will keep trying. I will be kicking myself for the next couple of hours but I need to move forward,” he added.

“We have a good race car, the team have done an amazing job. The car felt better and the team deserve better. Maybe they will get that with Kimi.”

Mercedes running better than expected at Monza

Although Russell suffered a setback on Friday when Kimi Antonelli crashed his car in the first 10 minutes of the session, causing him to miss half an hour of FP2, his P3 on the grid is encouraging for the Silver Arrows.

The high track temperatures at Monza were expected to be a handicap for the team, after they experienced problems earlier in the season. Marc Priestly expected the team to hit issues after appearing ‘lost’ at the Dutch Grand Prix.

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Mercedes has been comfortably within a tenth of McLaren and ahead of both Red Bull’s who are having to work to understand their problems after a miserable qualifying session after finishing fourth fastest.

Russell and Hamilton will hope they can improve on their outing at Zandvoort, when they struggled to break into the top five for most of the race.