Hamilton dejected after failing to reach Q3 in Imola

Lewis Hamilton seemed frustrated with Mercedes’ current performance after failing to reach Q3 in Imola.

For the first time since the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix, Mercedes failed to place at least one of their cars in Q3 with both Hamilton and teammate George Russell exiting the session earlier than hoped.

The seven-time world champion’s frustration was evident when being interviewed by F1, saying:

“We’ll just keep working hard, each weekend is a rescue.”

Hamilton was only able to snatch 13th after a red flag followed by rain denied him the chance to set a lap time in the second part of Qualifying.

However, the Silver Arrows’ lack of pace was evident when the 37-year-old narrowly escaped Q1 by just 0.004 seconds.

He said:

“It wasn’t a great session, naturally its disappointing, coming here with optimism and everyone’s working really hard at the factory and thing’s just don’t come together.

“I think we underperformed as a team today. There are things that we should have done that we didn’t do and, anyway, we’ll work as hard as we can to move up in the Sprint race.

“It’s going to be a difficult race, hopefully tomorrow’s better weather-wise and, who knows, maybe we can move our way forwards.”

This is the second time that Hamilton has not reached Q3 this season after qualifying 16th in Saudi Arabia.

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