Lewis Hamilton makes Mercedes demand minutes after US Grand Prix qualifying nightmare

Lewis Hamilton had never qualified outside the top five for a United States Grand Prix in Austin before Saturday but only managed to go 19th quickest in a Q1 session to forget

Lewis Hamilton wants his team to start him from the pit lane at the United States Grand Prix after his unprecedented qualifying nightmare.

The seven-time F1 champion went only 19th fastest in Q1 on Saturday to mark by far his worst ever result at the Circuit of the Americas. And afterwards he confirmed there had been changes made to his car between the Sprint race earlier in the day and qualifying.

Hamilton said: ""In the Sprint we had some sort of failure on the formation lap on the front suspension and I had that throughout the Sprint race. That made the balance really difficult.

"We did change a couple of things to push us in the direction of what we would have done yesterday and the car was a nightmare today in qualifying. I should probably start in the pit lane, otherwise I will not be going anywhere. It was just an inconsistent balance and no grip."

A Mercedes spokesperson confirmed that a bearing problem had been discovered on Hamilton's car and fixed between the sessions. There was no immediate evidence to suggest that the issue had arisen again, but it was clear that the Brit was unhappy with how his car felt on track.

Hamilton is set to start 18th, pushed one place higher than his on-track qualifying position because of a grid penalty for Liam Lawson. But the seven-time F1 champion made it clear he wants to start from the pit lane - indirectly asking his team to break parc ferme rules and make set-up changes to improve his car.

It remains to be seen whether or not the team will choose to do that. But with Hamilton unhappy with the balance of the car in its current state, it may be difficult for him to cut through the pack and fight for point unless they make tweaks to his machine.

Moods at the Mercedes garage did not improve later in the session as team-mate George Russell crashed out. He was sixth on the timesheets when he lost control at 125mph while on his final flying lap and buried the car into a barrier.

Russell seemed to be uninjured but it did leave his mechanics with a big repair job to do overnight to get it ready for the race. And because there were zero seconds left on the clock at the time of the crash, all those on their final runs had to abort and that was the end of qualfiying.

Lando Norris was at the top of the timesheets at that point and so will start the Grand Prix on pole. Max Verstappen was one of those who was on a lap when Russell crashed and so never got the chance to leapfrog his title rival, but will line up alongside the McLaren on the front row.

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