After two weeks of criticism from Ferrari Chairman John Elkann, Lewis Hamilton said in Las Vegas he woke up thinking about driving. However, the turbulence Hamilton is currently experiencing has not gone away. Before Thursday’s practice, Hamilton said his passion has not waned and he actually thinks about driving while sleeping.
“Not really, I wake up thinking about it and I go to sleep thinking about it and I think about it when I’m sleeping,” he said. “If anything I have to focus on being able to unplug more. It’s been a really heavy year. It’s been the busiest year that I think I’ve had. I’ve been at the factory more than I think I was at any other factory before.”
Hamilton is sixth in the drivers’ championship, 66 points behind his teammate Charles Leclerc, who also addressed Elkann’s comments, which had been aimed at both drivers.
Leclerc did not add fuel to the fire.
“People’s interpretations are beyond my control, and I’m not even interested in wasting time on them, ” he said. “John called me, as he does after every Grand Prix. We talked about everything, including what he wanted to say. He wanted to be constructive and encourage the team to perform better.”
Hamilton, a seven-time world champion, was largely supportive while recognizing Ferrari is largely climbing uphill.
“I joined this team knowing full well that it takes time to steer a ship in a different direction,” Hamilton said. “This is a huge thing, it’s a huge organization. There’s so many moving parts, you can’t fix it in the click of a finger.
On social media after the Mexico GP, many Ferrari fans were calling for Elkann to leave the team. Ferrari is the equivalent of the Dallas Cowboys in the sport: they have the most fervent and largest fan base. Meanwhile, the Prancing Horse has not won a constructors’ championship since 2007.
Hamilton’s struggles continue
On the track, Hamilton qualified in 20th, dead last, for the first time in his career despite an extremely wet track on the Las Vegas Strip.
There were multiple yellow flags being thrown as drivers ran wide, off the track, and were cited for track limits. It was a case of drivers being in the right place at the right time to improve their times, but for Hamilton, he could muster no higher than P20.
Replays show that a cone got stuck under Hamilton’s car on his last lap, preventing him from going faster.
“I got yellow flags in the last corner and coming into turn 17 there was a yellow flag, so I had to have a lift and when I came to the line it was red,” Hamilton said.
“It’s very annoying, of course, because I felt like, in FP3, the car was feeling awesome and I thought it was gonna be a great day, but… turned out to be the worst.”
“At least it can’t get much worse than that.”
His team radio during FP3 was crystal clear: “I couldn’t get the tires to work,” Lewis Hamilton told the pit wall. “It was very slippery out there.” That was predicted because Las Vegas in late November is cool at night and the cars have struggled to maintain grip. Coupled with the intermittent rain, the tires took longer to warm up.
Despite the fact Ferrari, which initially looked competitive on the Las Vegas street layout, now finds itself having to chase from Saturday onward. For Lewis Hamilton, forced to start from the back, the Las Vegas Grand Prix will become a full recovery mission as he attempts to climb back through the field. LeClerc qualified in ninth.
