Lewis Hamilton breaks his silence after Charles Leclerc dominates him again in Ferrari's intra-team battle in the F1 Saudi Arabian GP
Lewis Hamilton cut a sorry figure after the F1 Saudi Arabian GP as he was at odds to explain how Charles Leclerc once again dominated him over a race weekend. For the 7x F1 champion, the move to Ferrari has not gone the way he would have hoped.
The only highlight for the driver continues to be the sprint pole position and win in China, but if we keep that aside, he has not been on the same footing as his teammate. The Brit just doesn't have confidence in the car, and it shows.
In the five races we've had this season, Lewis Hamilton has finished behind Charles Leclerc in all of them and outqualified him just once. The race in Jeddah was arguably his lowest point, though. The driver has been quite open throughout the race weekend in admitting that he has no confidence in the car.
It showed in qualifying where Hamilton was six-tenths down on his teammate. In the race, it was once again more of the same, as he just didn't have the pace of his teammate. In the end, when the race was over, Charles Leclerc was on the podium, Ferrari's first of the season, while Hamilton was a whopping 30 seconds+ down the road.
Talking to the media, including Sportskeeda, the driver was at a loss for words to explain the deficit. Talking about the car, he said:
"Clearly the car is capable of being P3. Charles did a great job today. So I can't blame it on the car. Nothing positive from today. Except for Charles finishing on the podium, which is great for the team."
Coming on to his experience with the car, Hamilton was open enough to admit that he's still not clear on what the issue was.
"[On my end] it was horrible. It was horrible. Not enjoyable at all. I was just sliding around. First stint, massive understeer, car not turning. And then massive deg. And then the second stint, slightly better balance but still just no pace. Yeah, pretty bad. Struggling to feel the car underneath me. But there's no particular thing. There's nothing to say 'hey, this is the issue'," Lewis Hamilton added.
Lewis Hamilton doesn't see a silver lining with the end of ground effect regulations
Lewis Hamilton's struggles in qualifying recently have coincided with the advent of ground effect cars. The ground effect cars were the first where the driver first started facing issues in qualifying and then in terms of overall pace.
In 2026, the ground effect comes to an end as different cars will be used. With that being said, the driver was not too confident about committing that the new regulations would magically solve his issues. He said:
"I don't know anything about next year's car, if I'm going to be honest. I'm not spending any time to think about it. Let's hope [it will be]. Less ground effect, let's hope things shift a little bit."
The start of Lewis Hamilton's journey at Ferrari has been very unsuccessful. Questions would be asked of the driver if this is the level of performance that he would continue to have against a Charles Leclerc, who is wringing the neck of his car.