Lewis Hamilton had a tough qualifying session for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Saturday, which left him to start seventh on Sunday, despite strong-looking Friday free practices. He later explained that the poor result was caused by an ‘incorrectly built’ part, which led him to use the wrong setup. 

Because of his disappointing starting position, Mercedes decided to give him a new engine for the race and face a penalty, which required Hamilton to start from the pitlane. He slowly worked his way up the field but got stuck just outside of points in eleventh place.

However, Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz, who were both ahead of Hamilton, suffered a collision in the penultimate lap of the race, which helped the seven-time world champion score at least 2 points for ninth place.

During the race, Hamilton multiple times complained to his engineer about steering issues, and after spoke about, how much it affected his performance.

"It was probably the worst balance I have ever had. I had so much front end and no rear," quote Hamilton Autosport.

"I had to yank the steering to break the traction at the front and slide it through every corner. It was the weirdest way to drive.

"I knew we would not be able to overtake today. It is one of those tracks. I don’t know why our pace was so bad from our side from Saturday,” he added resentfully.

After experiencing an engine failure in Australia, Hamilton was expected to face an engine penalty at some point this season. The Team Principal of Mercedes, Toto Wolff, explained why they decided to do it at a street circuit like Baku, where is quite hard to overtake.

"We decided to do the engine change here and we knew that it was going to be a race of misery, because it's so difficult to overtake in Baku," Wolff said.

"And that's what it was. The moment you come closer, you overheat the tyres and then you go backwards.

"There were two different philosophies and we discussed it at length. You just swallow the pill here, because starting from P7 we didn't know where that would have gone, or you do it in Austin. But we feel that Austin is an opportunity, so that was the decision. Right or wrong I don't know. It was a close call."

Mercedes currently sits fourth in the Constructor's Championship standings, ranking last among the top teams, with 309 points. They trail Ferrari by 116 points and the new championship leader, McLaren, by 167 points. The team is pointing all their hopes to Austin, where they are reportedly planning to introduce floor upgrades.