How often has it been in 2023 that we’ve seen Lewis Hamilton with a dreary face, giving a discouraging update on his W14s performance? Quite often. The car hasn’t been to his liking and Mercedes hasn’t put the foot on the throttle to bring about substantial changes. The Italian GP Qualifying was no different for him. Though his teammate, George Russell, shined in comparison to him, the 7x champ was left groaning over the Silver Arrows’ age-old problem.

It was an absolute banger of a Qualifying at Monza. The home heroes and Ferrari drivers came blazing through with Carlos Sainz beating Max Verstappen for Pole. But for Mercedes, while Russell secured a tough-fought P4 for Sunday, Hamilton, ironically, couldn’t find much speed at the ‘Temple of Speed’, securing only P8. According to him, the car has never been this difficult to drive.

“I just had problems with the car,” said Hamilton, as quoted by Motorsport-Total. “It wasn’t great. The car felt best in the first practice session and then it got worse. Our car is generally very difficult to optimize. Nothing is easy about this car.” Now, the Briton surely knows what it felt like for his rivals when he was dominating the sport.

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If, in fact, the W14 is not as easy to drive as before, how is a less-experienced Russell out-qualifying a 7-time champion in the same machinery?

George Russell delighted as a unique change secured accidental P4 in Qualifying at the Italian GP

George Russell hasn’t been driving as consistently as he did in 2022. But in qualifying at the Italian GP, he was relatively quicker and finished higher than he was expecting. Turns out, it was an unintentional change that got him an unexpected flying lap good enough for a 2nd row on Sunday.

After the Qualifying at Monza, Russell said, “Feeling good. Especially my side of the garage we set the car up more for the race than we did in qualifying. That’s why I’m very pleased to be P4. We’ve got a chance of fighting for a podium if we make a good start.”

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Even at the Dutch GP, the 25-year-old was predicted to finish on the podium. But as fate had it, he finished dead-last, in P17 (3 drivers DNFed). This time around, the Brackley outfit will hopefully look to not repeat the “catastrophe” like at Zandvoort.