Hamilton accepts blame for pair of penalties as he fails to score in Losail · RaceFans

Lewis Hamilton’s penultimate race as a Mercedes driver marked another low in his final season at the team as he picked up two penalties and finished outside the points.

His race got off to a poor start as he dropped back three places on the opening lap despite moving from his grid box too soon. That earned him his first penalty of the day.

“It was a pretty bad race for me overall, but these things happen,” Hamilton admitted. “It started off badly with my false start which was my fault and resulted in a penalty which I served during my stop.”

The stewards said Hamilton was “only very slightly ahead of the start signal [so] the minimum penalty was applied.”

Hamilton suffered a further setback when his front-left tyre deflated. “I had the puncture which was just unfortunate,” said Hamilton, “followed by the pit lane speeding which was on me, too.”

The stewards found Hamilton exceeded the 80kph pit lane speed limit by 12.5kph. They handed him a drive-through penalty. As with his jump start, Hamilton incurred no penalty points.

At one point during the race Hamilton told his team he wanted to retire. Instead he pressed on and took the chequered flag 12th out of the 15 finishers.

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“The car had a lot of understeer today because we didn’t have enough front wing [angle] in the set-up,” Hamilton explained. “I gave it my best shot, but it all seemed to go downhill from the start.”

Next week’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix will be Hamilton’s final appearance for Mercedes, the team he joined 12 years ago. He is keen to leave the team with a more satisfying race.

“This race weekend hasn’t been great but we have another next week where we can try and finish a bit better and I hope we do have a better result,” he said.

“These last races don’t have an impact on all of the great things we have done together as a team. Races are a rollercoaster ride of emotions, I’ve had great races in my life and bad races too. Ultimately, it’s not how you fall it’s how you get back up and we will try again next week.”