The seven-time world champion believed he could match his team-mate’s astonishing time in Q3 – a record which gave George Russell his first career pole position – but a DRS failure on the final attempt deprived Lewis Hamilton to improve.
Having to settle for his time from the start of Q3, the Briton dropped to seventh , admitting it was very frustrating to miss out on the chance to go higher after seeing what the driver on the other side of the Brackley garage achieved. .
“A big congratulations to George [Russell], it’s an amazing feeling to get your first pole position, and it’s great for us as a team as well,” said Hamilton. “We don’t know where our pace has come from all of a sudden, it’s been out of nowhere, so it’s very positive.”
“I’ll do what I can tomorrow to help him, and he should be able to win from that position on this track. In the meantime, I’ll try to work my way back up,” explained the seven-time champion after getting out of the car in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Asked if he thought Mercedes could have done a one- two , he said: “Of course, so it’s very frustrating that after everything we’ve been through, we’re not able to fight for the front row when we could, but we’ll have other opportunities.”
The veteran English driver also admitted he didn’t understand that change in performance from the W13 after feeling it was “crazy” how much it varied from track to track: “I don’t know how or where our race pace is going to be now.”
“Yesterday we were slow, but maybe all of a sudden we’ve found something, so if we have, great, and if that’s for both cars, then hopefully we can really attack tomorrow,” Hamilton said.
“The car has changed overnight, we have worked a lot overnight, and the factory workers have been doing a lot of simulations,” he continued. “Obviously we didn’t notice it in FP3, but in qualifying we did feel it very well.”
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