Despite the initial apprehension toward the revamped Sprint weekend format, we are learning to love the action-packed weekend. If the drama in yesterday’s qualifying wasn’t enough, the sprint qualifying or shootout has served up some more. The mighty Lewis Hamilton has failed to qualify for the second round of the upcoming sprint race. That’s right, Hamilton has suffered an SQ1 exit in the first session of the sprint qualifying. How does one manage to do so after qualifying P5 just yesterday on the same track? Well, it’s all thanks to Mercedes‘ judgment and delayed reactions and the fans are livid.

The Mercedes man was out on track to put in a decent time for the shortened qualifying session for the sprint race. However, the limited time was exactly the factor Hamilton did not even make it to the SQ2 of the sprint shootout. The Brit could not get his tires in the right temperature window and could not set a good enough time to get himself out of the bottom five.

The Mercedes pit wall had a lot to do with this scenario as the team deliberated and waited too long to let Hamilton on track. The Brit was instantly welcomed by traffic. After his flying lap, which wasn’t good enough to see him through to SQ2, he ran out of time and the blunder by his team sealed his fate at P18. This is exactly why the seven-time world champion could not even get a second shot at making it to SQ2.

An extremely disappointing end to his sprint shootout which will most definitely ruin his Sprint race as well. It took fans no time to criticize the team for their massive blunder.

Lewis Hamilton stans did not hold back with their scathing criticism directed at Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton had his hand on his head, as seen on the tweet shared by the F1’s official Twitter page. The disheartening picture sums up Hamilton’s time with Mercedes in the last couple of years. The team has got an ear full from Hamilton on multiple occasions for the same. After the Sprint shootout blunder, the fans are joining in as well.

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The fans are growing tired of these strategic errors and Mercedes is facing the brunt of that. This could very well become the reason Hamilton decided to take his talents elsewhere.

However, knowing the Brit, he will be focused on damage control during the sprint race. Let’s see how can up he get his W14.