'S*** happens’ - Lewis Hamilton reflects on shock Q1 exit after “massive changes”

Lewis Hamilton says he made “massive” set-up changes to his Mercedes F1 car before qualifying a lowly 18th at the Chinese Grand Prix.

The seven-time world champion had a horrible qualifying in Shanghai and was knocked out in Q1 with a time good enough for only 18th on the grid.

His Mercedes teammate George Russell took eighth as he outqualifed Hamilton for the fourth time this season.

After suffering his first Q1 exit in two years, Hamilton revealed he had made big changes to his car after finishing second to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in Saturday morning’s sprint race.

“I just struggled. I made massive changes into qualifying. It wasn’t too bad in some places. I couldn’t stop in Turn 14. It is what it is,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.

"This morning, George  and I had very similar cars, but this afternoon we’re trying to experiment still with the car so I went one way a long way and he went the other way just to see if we could find anything.

"That’s what we need to do at the moment but it didn’t work. I’ll give it my best shot…18th is pretty bad.

“When I was making the set-up changes I was like ‘it can’t get any worse, surely’ and it did. S*** happens."

Hamilton has often attributed experimental set-up changes to his poor qualifying results this year, something which former teammate and title rival Nico Rosberg criticised.

“George has mostly been in front of Lewis. 4-1 now, in qualifying,” the 2016 world champion said during Sky’s F1 coverage of qualifying.

“Lewis tends to say ‘yeah but we have different set-ups and such a big car difference’. That is his excuse, so far this year.

“Each time he says that, George says: ‘The last time I checked, the cars are pretty similar…’

“He has gone again, for that. So it’s interesting.”