Hamilton laments wrong tyre call

The current drivers' championship leader gambled on the tyre choice in the hope that the rain would ease off.

Instead it worsened, and despite switching to extreme wets, Hamilton never came to terms with the conditions. He will start from 15th on the grid for tomorrow's Italian Grand Prix.

"It was a joint decision to go out on wet-weather tyres at the start of Q2 - partly mine and partly my engineers'," he said.

"We thought it was the right way to go at the time because it was getting drier, but the grip level was poor so I came in and switched to extremes.

"By the time I got out, it had begun to rain and I just missed the window when the track was at its fastest."

Hamilton, who has spoken highly of his ability to find grip in difficult conditions in the past, said that on this occasion it just didn't come together.

"It was very hard to pick out the braking points," he said. "It's the first time this has happened to me in Formula 1, so I can't really complain - tomorrow's another day and we still have a fighting chance to make our way up the grid. I'll be doing the best job I can."

Team principal Ron Dennis commented that the rain had made things tough for everyone - a view supported by the fact that Kimi Raikkonen and Robert Kubica also failed to make it to Q3 - but said that Hamilton's job had been made more difficult because the team had underestimated the weather.

"The weather conditions made things difficult for everyone, not only us, and in addition to that we were caught out by a less-than-fully accurate weather forecast," he said.

"As things turned out, there was only a narrow window of opportunity in which to cut a quick lap, and things didn't fall kindly for Lewis.

"But the weather may be unsettled tomorrow, too, and if so he should still be in a position to score a good result even though he'll be starting from a lowlier grid position than he would ideally have preferred."