Hamilton explains Mercedes 'nightmare' after qualifying shocker

Lewis Hamilton conceded that his car was a "nightmare to drive" during qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix, where he suffered a shock early exit. 

The seven-time world champion had gone fifth fastest in the opening segment of qualifying in Zandvoort but struggled in Q2. 

His final lap in the middle part of qualifying was over one-tenth down on what he required for a spot in Q3, with the Mercedes driver having been forced to settle for 12th. 

Changes were made to his W15 overnight; however, he was unable to truly understand if it was an improvement due to third practice having been very wet and red-flagged for the majority of the session.

"Yeah it was a difficult session," Hamilton told select media including RacingNews365. 

"We made changes overnight that we couldn't see in FP3 but it was the same for everybody, but we changed the car quite a bit, so it was a nightmare to drive."

It was not just Hamilton's car which had changes – including set-up tweaks – made, as team-mate George Russell also had work done on his car. 

As revealed by Hamilton though, Mercedes made more alterations to his car. 

"We both made set-up changes, but I made more," revealed Hamilton.

Hamilton car 'snappy'

The issue for Hamilton during qualifying was that his car was "massively snappy". 

This issue occurred after Mercedes went too far the other way in dialling out understeer, which Hamilton suffered from on Friday. 

"Yeah [the car was on a bit more of a knife-edge]," Hamilton said. 

"The car was massively snappy today, yesterday we had lots of understeer and tried to dial that out, but we went too much the other way."

There is a chance Hamilton could start further down the grid than 12th, as he has been summoned to the stewards for potentially impeding Sergio Perez in Q1. 

Despite this, the 39-year-old believes scoring a point will be very difficult. 

"It will be a struggle to get into the top 10, probably," conceded the Briton.