My car is all over the place, laments Hamilton

World champion Lewis Hamilton lamented the worst qualifying display of his Formula One career on Saturday and saw little hope on the horizon.

"The car is all over the place and there is nothing I can do with my driving style to stop it other than drive slow," said the 24-year-old McLaren driver, who qualified 19th for his home British Grand Prix.

"The engineers and mechanics are all as committed as before but unfortunately the error was made a long time ago," Hamilton said, before correcting himself.

"Not that it was an error but the unfortunate route we took happened a long time ago and it is kind of undo-able," added last year's winner at Silverstone.

Hamilton, Formula One's youngest champion at 23, has failed to score in his last three races and has just nine points to his credit.

Championship-leading compatriot Jenson Button has won six of seven races for Brawn GP and has scored 61 points out of a maximum 65.

Hamilton's last points finish was fifth in Bahrain in April and McLaren have failed to cut the gap between them and the frontrunners.

SAME SPOT

"When we were in Barcelona (for the Spanish Grand Prix) we were two seconds off," said the Briton. "We are pretty much in the same spot now, maybe 1.5 seconds, because everyone else has moved forward.

"The Red Bulls have made another step forward and they have gained a good half a second this weekend. We don't have one second on the car this weekend, we have gained a 10th or two if we are lucky."

Hamilton beat the entire field by 68 seconds in a wet classic at Silverstone last year but he said on Saturday that gaining a few places was all he could really hope for now.

"If we manage to get into the top 15, that's the only real target we have right now because we're 19th, a long way back on a high-speed circuit, so it's going to be very tough," he said.

"We have to bear in mind pretty much every car around is quicker in the high-speed corners. It's a fact, even the Toro Rosso and Force India (cars) are faster than us in turn one."