Lewis Hamilton has described 2024 as his “worst start” to an F1 season ever after failing to finish at the Australian Grand Prix.
The seven-time world champion retired with engine failure during Sunday’s main race at Melbourne Park, adding more woes to what was a miserable weekend for him and the Mercedes team.
Hamilton qualified 11th which was his worst qualifying result in Australia since 2010. His subsequent DNF follows his seventh and ninth place finishes at the opening two rounds in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia
The 39-year-old believes this is worse than in 2009 when he made a terrible start while with McLaren.
“I mean, this is the worst start to season I’ve ever had,” Hamilton said following his DNF in Melbourne.
“Oh, yeah, for sure. And it’s worse than 2009 I think.”
A tough race for the team 💔 A late accident for George, but thankfully he's okay. Lewis' race ended early with a PU failure pic.twitter.com/EveghpVz6a
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) March 24, 2024
Regardless of the massive setback, Hamilton remains positive that the situation can quickly turn around.
“Surprisingly I feel pretty good. I think I’m trying to keep things in perspective, you know?” he continued.
“It could be so much worse, I’m really grateful and have really enjoyed my time here in Australia.
“I’m still enjoying working with the team, of course I’d love to be fighting for wins and finishing races.
“It’s never a great feeling when you come all this way and don’t even see half of the race, but what I know is that we will bounce back and will get there, we just have to chip away at it.”
A difficult day.
We’re already looking into what caused the PU failure and together we’ll come back stronger 🤝 pic.twitter.com/pmpMi0qcF1
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) March 24, 2024
Hamilton’s teammate George Russell also failed to cross the chequered flag after crashing out from seventh place on the final lap.
The race was won by Carlos Sainz Jr. who Hamilton will be replacing at Ferrari next year.
Reigning world champion Max Verstappen also suffered a DNF after suffering a break-related problem early in the race.
