Vasseur blames Hamilton for the controversial mishap in sprint qualifying

10:04, 26 Jul

byTobia Elia

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur commented on what happened to Lewis Hamilton in the sprint qualifying session, which saw the Briton surprisingly eliminated in SQ1 after a strange and unexpected incident.

A clearly dejected Lewis Hamilton appeared in front of the cameras after the end of the sprint qualifying session, having been incredibly knocked out in SQ1.

The Briton locked up the rear tyres at the Bus Stop chicane, lost control of the car and spun out. From that point on, there was nothing more he could do — elimination was inevitable.

However, while Martin Brundle blamed the incident on a rear axle failure on the SF-25, Frederic Vasseur appeared more inclined to consider it a driver mistake.

Lewis Hamilton

Vasseur contradicts Brundle

''I think I have to watch the session again,'' the Frenchman told Canal+ when analyzing what happened.

''The first one, I think he's just behind... I think it's Tsunoda after he passes in the dust. I think it distracted him because we see a big cloud on the onboard and he has to lose it like that. And the second, I think he's just a little aggressive on the brake.''

Words echoed by Peter Windsor, who also believes it was a driver error: 'I've never seen Lewis do something like that, I mean he probably has but I can't remember a time when he's done something just as basic as that.''

''And that to me is complete lack of feel, certainly for the back end of the car. Probably the rears were massively overheated and of course he'd done two laps by then, which wasn't a good thing. Very sad to see that.''

Hamilton will start today from third-to-last position, hoping that rain might shake things up and give him a chance to fight his way back up the field.