Nico Rosberg points finger of blame over Lewis Hamilton problems with Brit 'raging'

Nico Rosberg believes that Lewis Hamilton is 'responsible at least partially, if not entirely' for his miserable qualifying result at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The seven-time world champion was eliminated in Q1 for the third consecutive race weekend, compounding a miserable first season with Ferrari.

Hamilton's Saturday started off on a sour note and failed to improve from there. The Brit lost control of his SF-25 machine at Turn Nine during FP3 earlier in the day, crashing hard into the barriers and bringing out the red flag.

Then, in qualifying, he posted the fifth-fastest time on his first run in Q1, but a sloppy final sector on his last attempt saw him drop into the bottom five after Gabriel Bortoleto bumped him. The Brazilian rookie went on to qualify seventh for Sauber's final-ever F1 start, while Hamilton was forced to settle for 16th.

Speaking to Sky Italy in the media pen, Hamilton couldn't contain his disappointment. "It's an unbearable amount of anger and rage, and there's not really much I can say about it," he said when asked to explain his headspace.

As previously stated, this was Hamilton's third consecutive Q1 elimination, made even worse by team-mate Charles Leclerc's impressive P5 starting grid. Heading into the season finale on Sunday, the 40-year-old is only two points ahead of Kimi Antonelli, the 19-year-old rookie who replaced him at Mercedes over the winter.

"Well, I mean, Charles is fifth," Hamilton's former team-mate Rosberg told Sky Sports F1. "Let's not forget, yeah? So, Lewis is definitely responsible at least partially, but if not entirely, for being 16th on the grid. So it's just unbelievably hard. And it's so tough. It's so tough.

"I can really, I feel for him, because it's horrible. It's horrible. You start to doubt yourself, you know, maybe I've lost it, he thinks to himself, you know, maybe I've lost it. And maybe it's just gonna continue like that the whole next year, and more pain, and it's really a horrible situation to be in, so not nice to see."

While there was nothing for Hamilton to celebrate, Leclerc could at least take some comfort from maximising the potential of his car in qualifying. "I'm very pleased with P5," he said. "It is a shame to be pleased with P5, but that's all we had today.

"So I'm satisfied with the performance of today and the laps in Q3. Yeah... I just hope that next year we'll start on the right foot and we'll be back winning races because that's all I want. But yeah, let's say if we look only at this weekend, it has been a good recovery from the team."