Lewis Hamilton pleaded with Ferrari for ‘help’ in unheard radio at Azerbaijan Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton was knocked out in Q2 at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Hamilton looked like a contender for pole position after practice, but will start no higher than 12th.

Hamilton set the pace in FP2 and still looked strong in the Saturday morning session, when he was fourth. But in a heavily-disrupted qualifying session, his pace fell away.

The seven-time world champion was 10th after the first run in Q2 and didn’t improve on the second. He was bumped into the elimination zone, and while he had enough time to complete another lap, he pitted, suggesting he had no more life in his tyres.

It’s the fifth time this season Hamilton has failed to reach Q3, and the third time in the last five Grands Prix. Teammate Charles Leclerc found the barriers at the start of the top-10 shoot-out, highlighting how difficult the car was to drive on a gusty circuit.

Lewis Hamilton asked Ferrari for advice to manage rear tyres in Baku

Speaking on the radio after his first Q2 run, Hamilton was left pleading with the Ferrari team to offer him some guidance. His main issue seemed to be rear-tyre temperatures.

He said: “Any advice, help? Someone has any please?

Engineer Riccardo Adami replied: “Brake release into turn two. Pull back turn 16.

“Rears are very hot,” Hamilton added, a complaint he’d already made earlier in the session.

After returning to the track, he asked the team if he had time to switch to the medium tyres, the favoured compound for several other drivers. He was informed it would be too ‘difficult’ to warm them up.

Hamilton’s eventual lap time of a 1:42.183 was three-tenths slower than he’d managed in Q1.

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Alex Brundle, an F1TV analyst at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, explained: “It’s going to hurt Leclerc through the rest of the weekend. Another set of new medium compound tyres went on for Leclerc. That’s why he was able to deliver that final lap of the session.

“The flip side on the other side of the garage for Hamilton is that they left him out there on the set of C6s [softs] to push, cool, push again. By the time he crossed the line at the end of the session, these tyres had done five laps total.

“You can see it in the lap time he is eventually able to deliver, and in the behaviour of the car. He’d been pleading over the radio with the team to help him manage the rear tyre, he’d been really struggling with it.

“As this tyre gets more and more energy through it, you can see him turning in and out of the corners all through this middle sector as it’s building rear tyre temperature in that C6 tyre. The tyre just doesn’t have anything left to give him as he’s trying to make his way through Q3.

“I wonder if they’ll look back at this session and think for Lewis, should we have taken a different strategic call to try and get him through to the next phase.”

The practice radio message that hinted Lewis Hamilton was in trouble

There was a hint that Hamilton would struggle to replicate his Friday speed early in FP3 when he reported that the car felt ‘terrible’. While he found pace later in the session, he lacked the consistency that he’d enjoyed earlier in the weekend.

It’s unclear how big a role Ferrari’s overnight changes played in Hamilton losing his way. Multiple drivers found the barriers during qualifying, terminally or otherwise, which suggests grip was generally hard to come by.

Karun Chandhok says Hamilton has made a breakthrough with Ferrari’s Brembo brakes, but that wasn’t his biggest issue here. He asked his team multiple times to dial in more front wing, pointing to some difficulties with their low-downforce set-up.