Lewis Hamilton disappointed after having to retire from Abu Dhabi GP – Formula 1 news
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton expressed his disappointment after he had to retire from the Abu Dhabi race due to a fuel pump failure this Sunday.
Hamilton had shown a fantastic pace in all three practice sessions and the qualifying round over the weekend. The only time he did not lead was in the second session and came in second just 0.168 seconds behind Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel. He was successful
at achieving the pole position for McLaren ahead of the race.
During the race, Hamilton had been leading comfortably until his car just came to a halt in the twentieth lap. He retired from the race after that giving way to Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus F1 to take the lead and move on to score his first race victory of the
season.
“I'm gutted; I'd had really good pace all weekend and I feel certain we could have won today,” he said. “I had a fuel pressure problem - it was very sudden, I was just entering a corner and the car just died on me. The only mistake I made all weekend was
having a brief moment on lap two, when my brakes weren't fully up to temperature and I locked up into Turn Eight. After that, however, everything was going really well. The car was a dream to drive - I was cruising and still pulling away when I had my problem.”
The driver has been a bit unlucky this season as this recent incident becomes the fifth time he has not been able to complete a race. Each of these times it has not been Hamilton’s fault. He stated that the team has been dealing with reliability issues and
will hopefully be working to fix them.
Hamilton believes that Vettel has been really lucky to score a podium finish in this race despite having to start from the pit lane after his disqualification. He is hopeful to score a win for his team as only two more races remain.
Hamilton has been confirmed by the Mercedes team for next year’s driver line up and he will be replacing Michael Schumacher who is retiring from the sport at the end of this season.
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