article: The world champion described it as "probably the worst qualifying session I've ever had". His error-strewn late afternoon driving on Saturday on the demanding new street track in Baku, Azerbaijan, left him 10th on the grid. Because he was back there, his Mercedes engineers told him to use a specific engine mode for the race, which was supposed to give him more power but instead gave him less, because it had been configured wrongly. That made his progress through the field slower than it would have been, so he burned up his tyres more quickly than he would have done and he could not do better than fifth place. Hamilton's problems left his team-mate Nico Rosberg with as easy a cruise to the flag as is possible around a track that has traps waiting for a driver at literally almost every turn. The cliche that no grand prix win is easy is just that because it is true. But Mercedes had a pace advantage so great in Baku that all Rosberg had to do was keep it out of the walls and victory was his. With it, as things turned out, came a 24-point lead in the championship. Why did Hamilton drive as badly as he did in qualifying? No-one knew. He had been blistering in Friday practice but come Saturday, while still the fastest thing out there, he was locking wheels everywhere. "I couldn't push on the brakes," he said. "I just went straight on all the time." The engine-mode problems that hit both Mercedes drivers in the race - Hamilton worse than Rosberg - were rooted in what boss Toto Wolff described as a "messy Friday". On top of that, the track grip levels changed with the extra heat on Saturday. Mercedes made a set-up change and suddenly Hamilton felt less confident. His individual sector times were so good, pole looked like a given. But he could not string a lap together. It looked as if, had he backed it off by 0.2secs or so, he still had enough to take pole. That would certainly have been the wiser approach in hindsight. But as Wolff put it: "That's not in his make-up." The result was a series of lock-ups and errors and, eventually, a crash. It was an unusually - almost shockingly - poor performance from a man of such sublime talent. And from that moment on the race was Rosberg's to lose. Neither Hamilton nor Mercedes had an explanation for his unruly driving. But one senior team figure said: "Maybe that's part of his genius. Sometimes you just have to accept the flip side of it is that he is going to have an off day." For the start of the race, Hamilton was told to put his engine in a specific setting that should have guaranteed him more power, to make it easier to pass the cars in front of him. Rosberg was not - because the Mercedes was so superior he did not need it. But from lap four, Hamilton noticed that the engine was "de-rating" -
summary: Will Lewis Hamilton come to rue his awful performance in qualifying for the Grand Prix of Europe?