Lewis Hamilton’s final weekend with Mercedes has taken a bad turn after a disappointing qualifying session for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Despite starting the weekend strongly and showing promising pace in free practices, Hamilton’s hopes fell apart in qualifying, where he finished 18th. He will move up to P16 on the grid due to penalties for other drivers, but it’s still a frustrating result for his farewell weekend.

The Briton’s troubles began when he hit heavy traffic on his final run and got a bollard, which had been dislodged earlier by Kevin Magnussen’s Haas, stuck under his car, which affected his performance.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was furious with the team’s mistakes after the session, calling them “inexcusable” and “idiotic.” He especially criticized the decision to leave Hamilton’s final qualifying run so late, which added to the chaos.

“I just need to apologise to Lewis, and also to everyone in the team that worked so hard in making it a great end for him,” Wolff told Sky Sports F1.

“He was the quicker guy with that kind of set-up that we chose on the car, also to experiment for next year, and we totally let him down.

“An idiotic mistake of not going earlier. Inexcusable. Inexcusable. I have rarely been so down about what happened.

“It maybe summarises the last races we had with him. But this is the worst part of it, because it was just idiotic.”

Hamilton is getting ready to say goodbye to Mercedes after 12 years with the team as he will join Ferrari next season, but the farewell weekend has not gone as planned. A podium finish, which looked possible after practice, now seems out of reach as Hamilton needs a perfect drive in Sunday’s race to recover and end his Mercedes career on a high note.