Lewis Hamilton’s run of misfortune showed no sign of turning a corner, even around the twistiest track of the year.
"It's just becoming the norm, now," the triple world champion said after a fuel pressure problem affected his Monaco Grand Prix qualifying and left the Briton third on the grid for Sunday's 78-lap race.
“It’s to be expected,” he added, summing up his difficult start to the season.
The Briton, in desperate need of his first victory of the season after Mercedes-GP teammate Nico Rosberg won the season’s first four races, had hoped Monaco might give him the chance to reduce the 43-point deficit.
It still could, but it will be a tougher challenge with Rosberg starting second on a track where overtaking is always a challenge. Red Bull’s Australian Daniel Ricciardo is on pole position.
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Asked whether he would have had the pace to take pole without the fuel problem, which forced him to stop at the end of the pit lane and be pushed back to the garage by mechanics as the final phase started, Hamilton said: “Absolutely. It was going to be close for sure, but I definitely think so.”
While Rosberg has enjoyed a strong run of reliability this season, Hamilton was hampered by power unit problems in China and Russia during qualifying that left him down the grid.
The champion was involved in first lap collisions in Australia and Bahrain, with the Mercedes drivers crashing into each other in Spain.
Hamilton, whose lone victory in Monaco came in 2008 when he was at McLaren, had feared initially that yesterday’s pressure problem would sideline him in the final shoot-out and not allow him to set a lap time.
He said he had noticed the problem as soon as he accelerated out of the garage.
“I was hoping it was just a hiccup. And then it kept happening. I hoped it would go away and then they told me to not leave the pit lane,” he said. “At that point I thought I might be starting from 10th again.
“My only thought was ‘I hope I get to go out and at least do one lap’.”
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