Lewis Hamilton’s qualifying struggles in Formula 1 continued at the United States Grand Prix after he was dramatically knocked out in Q1.
The Mercedes driver had left it late in the first qualifying segment to try to get through to Q2, but it all went wrong as he failed to produce the lap time needed.
While he was slightly up on the cutoff point in the first sector, it all went wrong under braking for Turn 12 at the end of the back straight.
He appeared to run deep and, as he struggled to get the car turned in, he suffered some snap oversteer on the exit.
His second sector time ended up being half a second adrift of what team-mate George Russell did – and left him in the drop zone.
As a number of other drivers improved in the closing stages of Q1, Hamilton ended up 19th overall at the end – less than one tenth of a second ahead of Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu.
Hamilton’s Q1 exit was his first since the Chinese Grand Prix when he ended up 18th on the grid, and is his worst qualifying result of the 2024 campaign.
More to follow
