Lewis Hamilton suffers humiliation for THIRD qualifying in a row

Lewis Hamilton has been eliminated from qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix in Q1, adding further misery to his already torrid weekend at the Lusail International Circuit.

The Ferrari driver was consigned to an SQ1 knock-out on Friday evening, before coming home a lowly P17 in the one-third distance sprint.

He was P18 this time, with only Lance Stroll and Franco Colapinto behind, but will start the grand prix from P17 after Gabriel Bortoleto's five-place grid drop from the last round is applied.

The seven-time F1 drivers' champion was almost three-and-a-half tenths of a second slower than Charles Leclerc, who was eighth-fastest, in the other SF-25.

It follows his last-place qualifying effort at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, which was the first time in his F1 career he finished a grid-setting session slowest on pure pace.

Hamilton has now recorded consecutive Q1 knock-outs in grand prix qualifying for the first time since we failed to reach Q2 three times in a row across the Monaco, Turkish and British Grands Prix in 2009.

Yuki Tsunoda also failed to make it through to Q2, in P16, having outperformed Max Verstappen in sprint qualifying, the first time he had outqualified the Dutchman since he joined Red Bull.