Hamilton Shares His immediate Thoughts Right After P7 In Qualifying

Saturday, 06 April 2024 at 14:00

Updated at Saturday, 06 April 2024 at 17:26

Lewis Hamilton commented on the qualifying session after he only recorded the seventh-fastest time on Saturday at Suzuka Circut.

The seven-time World Champion said his car felt the best it ever did after the first two practice sessions. Mercedes struggled with consistency, and so it was questioned whether the German team would be able to retain that great drivability in FP3 and Qualifying.

In Q3, Hamilton and his teammate were yet again at the top of the sheets with P4 and P3. However, in Qualifying, they were only fast enough for P7 and P9.

Interestingly, despite the result that was pretty much the same as all the previous Grand Prix weekends, the 39-year-old driver asserted he felt great in the car this time. He told the media:

"I was giving it everything. The team did a really great job this past week making adjustments to our set-up. This is actually the first weekend I've not gone crazy with set-up and am not testing a bunch of things, so I'm back to a bit more normal."

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“I think we’ve got the car into a much nicer working window and so it’s been really enjoyable driving, it’s just the guys are just a little bit faster.

Today was the first time Hamilton out-qualified his teammate this season, which he might have needed after a tough first three weekends.

The problem for Mercedes now is that Hamilton said the car handled well but is still not fast enough. The seven-time World Champions suggested there isn't much more time to be gained setup and performance-wise.

"We were a second or just over a second off last year to the Red Bull, and seven tenths is better. Maybe if we had done something a little bit different, we could have been another tenth faster, but other than that, that was everything."