{"id":301950,"date":"2025-11-22T18:26:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T18:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/301950\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T18:26:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T18:26:13","slug":"lewis-hamilton-lost-focus-claim-made-after-humiliating-qualifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/301950\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton \u201clost focus\u201d claim made after humiliating qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lewis Hamilton \u201clost focus\u201d on his way to suffering a humiliating qualifying at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Jenson Button has claimed.<\/p>\n

Seven-time world champion Hamilton<\/a> qualified 20th and last on outright pace for the first time in his F1 career during a wet qualifying session in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Hamilton blamed his shock Q1 exit <\/a>on a miscommunication after seeing red lights as he took the flag, but\u00a0 2009 world champion Button believes his former teammate made a mistake.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess you should know every regulation. It\u2019s really tricky as a driver if you see red lights flashing in front of you, you think it\u2019s over,\u201d Button told Sky Sports F1.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the timing line is obviously before that and he knows that because he gets the time on the dash for the previous lap time.<\/p>\n

Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it\u2019s that tricky out there and there\u2019s so much going on, he\u2019s probably glad it\u2019s over in a way. But I think he\u2019s lost focus on what is correct for starting on the next lap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he would defend Hamilton, Button replied: \u201cNo. It\u2019s a tricky one and he\u2019s not the first one that\u2019s probably made this mistake.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the timing line is a different line to the gantry and you should know that because the time comes up on your dash. We all get told what our lap times are when we cross that line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Analysing the incident on the SkyPad, former F1 driver Anthony Davidson said: \u201cI feel personally like he missed a valid push lap there.\u201d<\/p>\n

A defence for the Ferrari pit wall \"Hamilton <\/p>\n

Hamilton aborted his last lap of qualifying<\/p>\n

Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Fellow Sky Sports F1 pundit and former strategist Bernie Collins defended the Ferrari <\/a>pit wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was clear from team radio there was a bit of confusion with the lights,\u201d Collins explained. \u201cOn the lap before, the pit wall does tell him it\u2019s going to be tight for one more lap and to keep pushing to get that lap.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s clear indication to a driver; one that you are not safe, if they tell you to keep pushing to get another lap, and two; it\u2019s tight to get to the line. But they think it\u2019s possible otherwise they wouldn\u2019t tell you that. So he was told that earlier in the lap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he crosses the line, Lewis says \u2018am I safe?\u2019 His engineer says \u2018no, keep pushing\u2019 and Lewis says \u2018I got the red light, I got the red light\u2019 and the engineer comes on again and says \u2018no keep pushing\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at that stage it\u2019s too late. He was given, before he got to the line, the information that it was going to be tight and he needed to keep pushing. Then when he got the red light he assumed that maybe Ferrari got the timing wrong, or he didn\u2019t make the flag.<\/p>\n

Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

\u201cHe thought he didn\u2019t get and he instantly lifts off. Then it\u2019s too late. As soon as a driver lifts off, there\u2019s no point telling him to push again because he\u2019s already lost the lap.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of those things went together but to defend the Ferrari pit wall, I think the information was there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton \u201clost focus\u201d on his way to suffering a humiliating qualifying at the Las Vegas Grand Prix,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,826,823,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-301950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-ferrari","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}