22/05/2021
NEWS STORY
Refusing to go into detail, after qualifying seventh, Lewis Hamilton insists his team has "to work harder" as he claims his car was a "disaster" after changes.
Even before qualifying, Monaco was shaping up to be one of those weekends we see once in a while when Lewis Hamilton fails to get into his groove.
Struggling for pace all weekend, the seven-time world champion's worst fears were realised when he qualified a disappointing seventh on a track notorious for its lack of opportunities for overtaking.
"Today was a question of tyres, the tyres just not working," said the Briton, "I was just sliding around.
"There are things that should have been done which haven't been done," he continued, barely hiding his frustration. "We'll learn from it and come together stronger in the next race."
Pushed harder on his comment on those things that should have been done but weren't, he replied: "I can't really say. But as I said, from my point it's a little frustrating. But it is what it is. I can't really say too much about it.
"Also I don't want to be critical of team, but behind closed doors, I will be. We've got to work harder.
"There were lots of changes that we did in the car after FP3, because FP3 was a disaster," he admitted, the Briton, ironically, having finished seventh in that session also.
"It was completely the wrong direction, we completely missed the ball," he admitted. "Then we made some changes to try and take steps backwards and move the car into a different place and the car was worse than ever. I think we really lost our way from Thursday.
"We definitely struggle (with tyre warm-up)," he continued, "and it's magnified here, as it's a low energy circuit, there's not many high-speed areas. Today was much, much cooler, you saw it get worse over the day.
"I'm not really sure how Valtteri was able to get his tyres working. I saw a glimpse of grip on that last lap, but it was short-lived. It will be a lot of analysis.
"P7 is not a great place to start here, but I'll need to do best I can. Damage limitation... and see if there's a way to move forward."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Monaco, here.