Lewis Hamilton struggled during Q1

Lewis Hamilton struggled greatly in the opening segment of qualifying, with the 2008 World Champion nearly being eliminated and subsequently qualifying a lowly 18th. However, as it transpired Bruno Senna was unable to improve upon his time, thus allowing Lewis Hamilton to only just progress to the later stages of qualifying.

As the opening part of qualifying drew to a thrilling conclusion, both the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton and the Ferrari of Championship leader Fernando Alonso began to ominously fall through the order. As more drivers opted for the super-soft tyre compound, Hamilton in particular began to plummet towards what would have been a highly embarrassing 18th grid position.

With the seven slowest drivers from the opening 20 minutes of qualifying being eliminated and unable to continue to the next two stages, Lewis Hamilton would have endured his most uncompetitive qualifying performance since the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix where he qualified a lowly 20th. However, the McLaren driver was saved by the fact that the Williams of Bruno Senna was unable to improve from 18th. Nevertheless, Lewis Hamilton was highly concerned at the time, after struggling greatly to string together a fastest.

“Definitely [was a concern].” Agreed Lewis Hamilton, when questioned about the tough Q1. “It was quite a shocking session for me: didn’t get a lap, did quite a poor job, struggled to get... when the tyres weren’t so bad temperature-wise I just had a bit of traffic, locking up. It was very poor. But I’m very lucky that I got through.”

After the near-disastrous opening part of qualifying, Lewis Hamilton made sure he maximized the pace of his McLaren by eventually out-qualifying team-mate Jenson Button and qualifying 3rd behind the two ever-dominant Red Bull’s of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel. With the pace of these two, Lewis Hamilton will have his work cut out during the race if he wishes to take victory at the Korean Grand Prix.

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