Lewis Hamilton isn’t very concerned about his subpar F1 qualifying performance in front of the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend.
Only once in 2024 has Hamilton outqualified George Russell, his Mercedes teammate.
This indicates that Russell leads the qualifying head-to-head 6-1.
In his entire Formula One career, Hamilton has only been outqualified by a teammate once during a season (Nico Rosberg in 2014).
But Hamilton’s one-lap pace has been a problem since the conclusion of last year.
On the other hand, Hamilton is still unquestionably one of the greatest on race day, especially when it comes to handling his tires.
Hamilton addressed queries regarding his lackluster qualifying performances when he spoke with a select group of reporters on Thursday in Monaco
“I wouldn’t say it’s not been a priority but the whole weekend has been the priority to improve everywhere,” he said. “Particularly since the end of last year and all this year has been pretty bad on the Saturday.
“I will continue to work on it. So far, I haven’t got it to a great place. There’s plenty of races to sort it out. There’s plenty of time to iron out all the creases in my performance and in the car’s.
“I am not getting too hung up on it. My race performance is still decent so fortunately I can fall back on that for now.”
Mercedes has not been on the podium in any of the first seven races of the campaign, enduring a challenging start.
They haven’t had a worse start to a season since 2011, the year they finished without a podium.
Hamilton stated he is “more excited” about going to Monaco than he was the previous two years, even though Mercedes has no major enhancements planned for this weekend.
“Well we don’t have any upgrades this weekend,” he added. “We had the package spaced over the last two races. We have our highest downforce level which everyone has here and we have an evolved wing.
“Otherwise, we don’t know where we’re going to be this weekend. I am definitely feeling more excited about it compared to the previous two cars as those two weren’t so great. This one’s a real work in progress so hopefully it should be a lot better here and than it was last year.”
