Lewis Hamilton has admitted that he and his Ferrariteam are not yet sure what caused his disappointing sprint qualifying session at the Dutch Grand Prix on Friday.
The Brit came into the weekend as one of the favourites in the field, but could only qualify seventh for Saturday’s sprint race, more than six tenths off the pace of polesitter George Russell, and more than half a second behind team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Hamilton suggested after the session that some ‘subtle adjustments’ between practice and qualifying may have made the difference, saying that his qualifying setup felt like a completely different car to the one he’d enjoyed in practice.
The seven-time world champion now looks likely to lose further ground to championship leader Kimi Antonelli and polesitter George Russell – although Antonelli’s own tricky qualifying session, damaging his car with a trip across the gravel and only setting the fifth fastest time – should mitigate that somewhat.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the disappointing shootout, he admitted: “Not a good session, unfortunately, this is the way it is.
“P1 felt good. We made subtle adjustments to the car, but when we got into qualifying it was a completely different car, so we need to figure out what went wrong and then we’ll do our best tomorrow.
“We’ll look at the data and then we’ll make a determination. We’ve just got to go through the data and figure it out. Charles was in a slightly different place to me, a bit closer to where I was, so that’s it.”
His team-mate Leclerc, conversely, appeared more than pleased with the lap which put him third on the sprint grid, calling it his best of the year after clocking in just 55 thousandths of a second behind Russell’s pole time.
“It was my best qualifying lap this year and it means we are doing something right with the feeling,” he said. “It doesn’t mean it stays forever but it’s always good steps in the right direction, especially after such a long break.