Where is Lewis? Hamilton, Russell off the pace in Baku after Melbourne magic

• Lewis Hamilton qualified fifth for Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
• The Mercedes driver still struggled for pace throughout the lap, but out-qualified teammate George Russell.
• Hamilton admits that the team’s W14 is slower throughout the lap.

It was not what the Mercedes-AMG team expected in Azerbaijan.

The Formula 1 team’s drivers, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, risked exiting qualifying after just the second session, but the former managed to squeeze into Q3, clearing Russell by 0.004 seconds.

It was not what they expected because last time out in Australia, the W14 challenged Red Bull’s mighty RB19 into Turn 1, and Hamilton did so until Max Verstappen managed to pass him for the race’s lead.

It was expected that the small upgrades the team brought to Melbourne would help them in Baku, but with zero additional upgrades brought to this weekend’s race, the team failed to improve the W14’s pace to a level like Australia’s.

Good indicator

When Q3 rolled around, Hamilton, the sole Mercedes driver, improved on his Q2 showing. Where he advanced to Q3 with the tenth-quickest time, he made it up to fifth with a time only 0.5sec quicker than Q2.

However, the improvement in lap time was not enough to make an impression on the timesheet.

In Q2, Hamilton’s quickest time was a 1:41.650, and his best in Q3 was 1:41.177. Against Leclerc’s Q3 time of 1:40.203, Hamilton was 0.974sec off the pace.

READ: ‘Not too bad’ – Top 3 qualifiers for Azerbaijan GP react to ‘really hard’ circuit

“My Q3 run one was a really sweet lap,” Hamilton said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to match… I just matched it basically at the end [of the session], but needed just a little bit more time to nip a Ferrari.

“I didn’t really know what to expect this weekend. I knew that the Red Bulls would be particularly quick. I didn’t realise we’d have such a huge deficit on the straights, but it’s a good indicator.

“We’re slower on the straights and slower in the middle sector, so we’ve got a lot of work to do to rectify that in the car – it’s not the easiest one to drive. I’m happy to be on the third row.”