Johannesburg: Four-time world champion Lewis Hamilton has termed his performance at the Chinese Grand Prix as `disaster` while admitting that he needs to rectify his shortcoming before it is too late.
The British driver, who was bidding to claim his fifth pole position in Chinese GP, struggled for pace in qualifying as he finished at a disappointing fourth spot in Shanghai on Saturday.
Subsequently, Hamilton lacked the pace, needed to even challenge for a podium position as he made a fourth-place finish in an action-packed Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit on Sunday.
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Reflecting on his performance, the Mercedes driver admitted that it was a case of underperforming on his side and that a solution needs to be found quickly before he loses more points in driver’s standings.
“I was in no-one man’s land today, I had no pace.I was just trying to hold on for whatever I had.Obviously, we’ve got a tough battle ahead of us, particularly on my side. I’ll say my side, but also us as a team,”Sport24 quoted Hamilton, as saying.
“We’ve been underperforming since… yesterday and today have been a distaster on my side.I’ve got to try and rectify that and get myself back into normal performance mode otherwise more valuable points will be lost,” he added.
With Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas making a second-place finish in Shanghai, it happened for the first time in the V6 turbo era that Mercedes have failed to win for three successive races.
Hamilton is currently standing at the second spot in the drivers’ championship, trailing Ferrari rival and championship leader Sebastian Vettel by nine points.
(With ANI inputs)