Hamilton frustrated after late Ferrari qualifying strategy change: ‘I towed Charles the whole time’

Lewis Hamilton has rued Ferrari’s qualifying strategy at Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, explaining it left him without a slipstream.

Hamilton’s performance worsened throughout qualifying on Friday in Baku, as he outpaced team-mate Charles Leclerc by exactly one tenth in Q1 before ending up 0.257s and 0.495s adrift in the following two segments respectively. As a consequence, he was sixth in Q3, with his team-mate up to the runner-up spot.

However, the seven-time world champion reckoned his lack of pace was down to two factors: not just his struggle to extract the most from his tyres, but also Ferrari’s strategy, as he found himself tow-less on his single, six-lap Q3 run.

“We've been struggling all weekend to get the tyres working,” Hamilton said. “Q1 was pretty OK. I felt like the car wasn't too bad in Q1.

“In Q2 we started struggling even more with the rear tyres. And I was behind at least some cars in those two sessions. After Q2 they decided to change the run plan and just do one run, which hadn’t foreseen the fact that I would come out with no one ahead of me, and just towing Charles the whole time. I was 25 seconds behind George [Russell], so…”

He added: “Charles did a really good job. Right at the end I gave him a really good tow all the way to the start line.”

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Joe Portlock / Getty Images

Hamilton did experience a tow in today’s FP3 session and believed it was worth “six tenths” – which would theoretically have vaulted him to the front row in Q3.

“It's literally just not having people up ahead,” he insisted as to his underwhelming result. “As I said, I was weaving to try and save my life, and I still couldn't get these stupid tyres working. It's such a pain in the arse. We've got to bring back some good tyres.”

Despite Leclerc’s encouraging result – and Hamilton’s apparent belief he could have been even quicker – the Briton doesn’t believe Ferrari has the second-fastest machinery. “Maybe the third-fastest car,” he added. “I think Max [Verstappen] has been quicker all weekend, and I don't know what happened to him in the session.

“It will be hard to overtake any of the cars.”

When his qualifying was described as a ‘perfect storm’ where ‘nothing went right’ - including a "gentle" hit with the wall in Q3 - a downbeat Hamilton responded: “It happens all the time, so I'm used to it.”

This was the first time in 2026 that the Ferrari racer qualified more than a second down on pole position, with a whopping 1.332s deficit to Mercedes’ George Russell – who was eight tenths faster than anyone.