Lewis Hamilton is still waiting for his first podium finish of the 2024 season despite Mercedes’ surprise improvement at the Canadian Grand Prix. The Silver Arrows took their first pole for nearly a year thanks to George Russell.
Hamilton, however, only qualified seventh after failing to improve on new tyres at the end of Q3. That saw him drop from second to the fourth row and left Martin Brundle baffled.
Russell now leads the seven-time world champion 8-1 in the qualifying head-to-head this year. Only Max Verstappen (9-0 vs Sergio Perez) and Alex Albon (8-0 vs Logan Sargeant) have been more dominant in this regard.
Hamilton hasn’t qualified on the front three rows for any Grand Prix this season. His weak Saturdays are consistently hampering him in the races.
In Montreal, he was able to recover to a season-best fourth place but he could have finished higher without a couple of errors. He went off track during his early battle with Fernando Alonso and also lost multiple seconds as he tried to reel in Oscar Piastri on a drying track.
Hamilton managed to get ahead of Russell after the latter’s botched overtake on Piastri. But the 26-year-old rallied to re-pass him in the final laps, extending his teammate’s run without a podium to 12 races.
Lewis Hamilton tells Mercedes to investigate tyre temperature issues
Hamilton was initially mystified as to the reason for his qualifying struggles, having topped FP3 by a healthy margin. But speaking to outlets including Formu1a.uno after Sunday’s race, he raised a potential explanation.
He was joining the track with colder tyres than anticipated, and this set him back when he went to start his flying laps. The Briton suspects that there may have been issues with the tyre blankets in the garage.
Mercedes will no doubt carry out their own review ahead of the next race in Spain. If they do discover a problem, then Hamilton will hope for an upturn in qualifying performance from Barcelona onwards.
He said: “Well, the tyres were working throughout the weekend. Then we got to qualifying, and every time I went out of the garage, my tyres were for some reason below on temperature.
“Every set was two or three degrees lower than it should have been, and you can’t catch it up, and I couldn’t switch the tyres on after that. That’s something we have to really look at because something went on with the blankets, I guess.”
Damon Hill reacts to ‘really poor’ Hamilton interview after Canadian Grand Prix
While Hamilton may not have been fully to blame for his weak qualifying, he was extremely critical of his showing in the race. He called it a ‘really poor’ performance, ‘one of the worst’ of his 17-year F1 career.
1996 F1 world champion Damon Hill came to his defence. He pointed out that Hamilton’s definition of ‘not very good’ might be different to everybody else’s given his supreme track record in the sport.
The 341-race veteran is slowly closing in on the end of his stint with Mercedes as he prepares to join Ferrari next year. If the year continues on its current trajectory, he may arrive at Maranello at a historically low ebb.
Hamilton is sitting eighth in the championship with more than a third of the campaign gone, 14 points behind Russell. His 2025 teammate Charles Leclerc is up in second despite retiring from the Canadian GP.
In light of his struggles this year, an increasing number of fans may back Leclerc to beat Hamilton. But F1 expert Peter Windsor says he won’t underestimate the six-time race-winner as he embraces what looks like a much-needed fresh start.
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