The seven-time world champion will roll off third place in Sunday’s race but was still disappointed after qualifying on Friday. Discussing his session with Sky Sports F1, he said: “Not massively satisfied. It’s just great for the team to be on the first two rows.
“Difficult at the beginning of the session, tricky conditions out there with the wind. Ultimately, a pretty average session for me. I’m going to give it everything and try and bag those points. It’s great we are ahead of the Ferraris which is key.”
Unfortunately for Hamilton, the announcement of his post-session investigation wasn’t where the drama ended for him on Saturday. The 38-year-old lost a lap time to track limits again in SQ2.
The British pair were among eight drivers placed under investigation after the first part of the sprint shootout qualifying session with both Williams and AlphaTauri drivers, Lance Stroll and Pierre Gasly also falling foul of the regulations.
This has been just the latest in a long line of track limits-related issues at the Qatar Grand Prix this weekend with Friday’s running proving so problematic that changes to the kerbs were made overnight.
After losing a lap to track limits in SQ1, Hamilton is facing his second trip to the stewards in as many days after he was checked for a maximum lap time violation in qualifying on Friday.
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The seven-time world champion was comfortably inside of the top ten heading into the final runs of SQ2 but ran wide, losing his critical lap and demoting him to P12.
Thankfully for Mercedes, Russell was much more positive ahead of the Grand Prix. He told Sky Sports F1: “We went out in qualifying and the lap times were just immense compared to this morning.
“I’m really happy with P3 (P2). I think we did a bit better than expected. The McLarens look quick. We know Red Bull and Max are in a league of their own. Our fight is with Ferrari and we need to be consistent.”
