Suzuka, Japan — Lewis Hamilton took responsibility for his poor qualifying performance at the Japanese Grand Prix, stating his P8 start was “not good enough”.

The seven-time world champion qualified eighth at Suzuka on Saturday, 0.311 seconds behind his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, who will begin Sunday`s race from fourth.

“Obviously, P8 is not great and not good enough from my side,” Hamilton mentioned to Sky Sports. “However, I was pleased to reach Q3, it was a close fight with everyone, but I didn`t manage to put together strong laps in Q3.”

During Q2, Hamilton was hindered by Carlos Sainz approaching Turn 1, causing the Ferrari driver to go over the kerb and off track. Sainz received a three-place grid penalty and will start from 15th.

Hamilton has had varied results in his initial races with Ferrari, including a win in the China sprint race but a disqualification from the main grand prix the following day.

His Ferrari was removed from the results because the plank under the car had excessive wear, resulting from running the car too low.

Despite the plank wear being just 0.5 millimeters over the allowed limit, Hamilton confirmed his car is set up higher in Japan, sacrificing some performance to prevent a recurrence.

“We are running higher than we would prefer, but everyone is facing similar constraints,” Hamilton added.

“Particularly after the previous race, we are running a bit higher than ideal – this is often the knock-on effect from a weekend like the one before. Charles performed an excellent lap today.”

“We opted for different setups, and we experienced significant understeer which we couldn`t resolve during qualifying.”

Hamilton hopes for rain during Sunday`s race to improve his chances of moving up through the field.

“I’m excited, I usually enjoy racing in the rain. It will be challenging, but when you have a qualifying session like mine, you hope for rain.”