Lewis Hamilton “really grateful” for ‘best Qualifying’ of the season at Spanish GP

Lewis Hamilton expressed his delight in securing his strongest Qualifying result of the season in Barcelona.

Lewis Hamilton “really grateful” for ‘best Qualifying’ of the season at Spanish GP

Lewis Hamilton (Via: Imago)

Lewis Hamilton has secured P3 on Saturday’s qualifying session allowing him to start from the second row at the Spanish GP. The 39-year-old felt super grateful after achieving third position to start the race on Sunday, while teammate George Russell trailed behind securing P4.

Post qualifying session, Lewis Hamilton talked about the performance difference he faced before qualifying. He felt that he lost a bit of a performance, even though his overall performance was better this time. Hamilton highlighted it was all about perspective, it might seem he lost some speed, it could be that his competitors simply improved.

I still feel like I lost [a little bit of] performance going into [qualifying]. It's all about perspective. Maybe they just moved forwards, but I definitely feel like there was a little bit more.
Lewis Hamilton said
YouTube video

Hamilton mentioned he was seven- tenths slower because of the issue with tire blankets which are used to warm up the tires before going out on track, that put him at a disadvantage at the start. However, Mercedes managed to fix the issue for the later sessions. Despite these challenges, the seven-time world champion was very grateful with his best result of the year so far.

FS Video
In P1, I was seven tenths down due to an issue with the blankets. And then we got it sorted for the following sessions. So, it puts you a little bit on the back foot. But yeah, otherwise, the car, as I said, it's good that we're up here and it's the best qualifying I've had this year, so I'm really grateful for it.
Lewis Hamilton added

Lewis Hamilton claims performance of his car is on the ‘knifes edge’

Hamilton further expressed his joy over being back among the top drivers. The Briton was glad to see team is making progress and getting closer to the front runners. He believed the car could do better, but its sensitivity to changes showed they have room for improvement. Despite all these issues, Hamilton expressed he’s very happy of how good things turned and he’s looking forward to Sunday’s race.

Generally it’s great to see that we’re progressing. We’re slowly climbing closer to the guys at the front. I think there was a little bit more performance in the car today, but it’s really on the knife’s edge and so we’ve got some improvements to make to the car but as I said, I’m really happy.
Lewis Hamilton expressed
Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton (Via: Imago)

Further, Hamilton explained when he was pushing the car hard, but it didn’t responded as expected. During practice, when he drove cautiously, the car felt good. However, when he tried going faster by pushing his limits, the car became very hard to control, especially after the issues with the tires.

So in practice, when you leave a little bit of margin, the car feels quite nice. But it's when you start to really lean on it to try and get that extra bit of lap time out where we really struggle. And I think it's all in the tires.
Lewis Hamilton added

Certainly, Lewis Hamilton felt extremely happy by his performance in qualifying, which was best so far. Hamilton believes P3 is a good position to start the race, fans would love seeing him win if the seven-time world champion manages to surpass Red Bull and McLaren ahead of him on the grid.

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