Second race of the year in Jeddah today, saw Lewis Hamilton starting from P16 as he couldn’t make it to Q2 yesterday, his first time in five years. Not the best of the starts for eight-time defending Constructors' Champions Mercedes, as they struggled a lot in Bahrain and even more so across the weekend in Saudi Arabia.

Hamilton had to find his way through all the midfield and try to get some points. He managed in the end to get P10 losing some positions, as he couldn’t pit due to Virtual Safety Car deployment.

Teammate George Russell fared better as the younger Brit finished in P5. A single point for the seven-time World Champion now leaves him 29 points behind championship leader Charles Leclerc just two races into the 2022 campaign. 

Hamilton said soon after the race: “I gave it my all. I pushed as much as I could, but we were too slow. Qualifying yesterday made our weekend even more difficult. We took home one point anyway; now we have to focus on the next race, that hopefully is not going to be as hard as these ones we already had.”

Lewis Hamilton also declared: “I think we are a little bit better in the race than in qualifying. In qualifying sessions, we lose a lot, especially on the straights.

The English driver seems to be determined anyway for the future and to help his team, although he knows it is going to be very difficult: “It’s a long road to take for me, I take my responsibilities for this result as well. It’s going to take some time, but never say never: we’ll work as much as we can, and we’ll see what is going to happen."