Lewis Hamilton struggled with rear anti-roll bar failure

Lewis Hamilton endured another frustrating race this afternoon at the Korea International Circuit, eventually finishing the race a distant and disastrously uncompetitive 10th after initially starting 3rd. After the first three corners on the opening lap, Hamilton found himself down in 4th position. From there, it was a downward spiral of bad luck.

Only several laps into his second stint after making his first of three pitstops, Lewis Hamilton began to struggle with the handling of his McLaren. This in turn effected the balance of the car, and forced the Briton into driving extra hard to maintain a reasonable pace. As the race wore on, Hamilton began to suffer from tyre wear, mainly due to the tough handling of his machine.

This saw Lewis Hamilton begin to fall steadily through the top ten, initially being overtaken by Felipe Massa before falling into the clutches of Kimi Raikkonen. After a slightly slower second stop, the 2008 World Champion found himself under attack from Romain Grosjean and Nico Hulkenberg, with the latter passing both the Lotus and the McLaren around the outside of turn four.

After being forced to pit for a third time due to excessive tyre wear, Lewis Hamilton found himself in a lowly 10th position behind the Toro Rosso duo of Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne. Throughout the closing laps, some of the astroturf which was being ripped up around the circuit became entangled on the sidepod of Hamilton’s car, stalling the diffuser and greatly effecting his rear downforce.

“I’m exhausted.” Explained Lewis Hamilton, after fending off Sergio Perez for 10th on the final lap. “I was told after the race that my car had suffered a rear anti-roll bar failure a few laps into the second stint. It was safe to drive – and I was trying my best with it, pushing all the way – but it was extremely hard to maintain a good pace. The balance was switching from corner to corner, the car was moving around along the straights, and it was eating up the tyres, which meant we lost further ground by being forced onto a three-stop strategy. To make things even more difficult, I then picked up some stray run-off astroturf, which tangled itself around my sideboard winglet for the final few laps.”

With Championship contenders Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen all finishing ahead of Lewis Hamilton after the 55-lap Korean Grand Prix, the Briton now believes his Championship chances are over. Hamilton is now 62 points behind Championship leader Sebastian Vettel, with only a maximum of 100 points available in the final four races of the season.

“In terms of winning the World Championship, logic suggests that that’s probably it for me.” Admitted Lewis Hamilton, “Having said that, there are a lot of points still up for grabs, so I’ll keep pushing. Stranger things have happened, and I’ll never give up.”

Lewis Hamilton will be striving for victory at once more in the remaining four races of the season, as his time with McLaren draws to an end with his switch to Mercedes for 2013. Hamilton has endured a tough few races of late, including a gearbox issue at Singapore, setup woes at Japan and recently the rear roll-bar issue this weekend at Korea.

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