Lewis Hamilton says he "disadvantaged" himself in qualifying through set-up changes after being beaten to pole position by Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg in Abu Dhabi.
Hamilton has been unhappy with the Mercedes since changes he says were made after the Signapore Grand Prix, despite winning the championship with a win at Austin since then. He reported happiness with his balance on Friday but ended up losing out to Rosberg by a sizeable three tenths.
Asked if there was a reason his pace dropped off in the final session after being strong in Q1 and Q2, he replied: "Not relaly. I've generally been struggling with the car a little bit all weekend. We've been working really hard to make some changes and we had to take something off the car. But Nico was just really quick today and he did a really great job in Q3."
Hamilton admits he probably made one too many changes on Saturday in order to rectify his recent discomfort behind the wheel.
"It generally gets a little bit better in the race. But it's been for a while now, just struggling on the edge of the car. It was a lot more comfortable at the beginning of the year for me and coming into this weekend I tried to make some changes, I disadvantaged myself with one of the things that I took off the car because it looked better. I tried to get around it but at the end of the day it wasn't good enough."