Lewis Hamilton says he does not expect to qualify ahead of team mate George Russell over the rest of his final season with Mercedes.
The seven-times world champion, who will leave the team he has raced with for the last 12 seasons at the end of 2024, qualified seventh on the grid for Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix, two places behind Russell.
Hamilton had been quicker than Russell in all three practice sessions before qualifying began. He said his Mercedes felt a lot better to drive around the notoriously tight and bumpy street circuit that has not been a strong track for the team in recent years.
“It was looking great yesterday,” Hamilton told Sky. “We’ve really been working hard to improve this car and from the get-go, it felt great. We were obviously competitive yesterday and this morning. We’re not making any drastic changes or anything like that.”
However, Hamilton said that he had been lacking a new part which Russell has run this weekend. The pair are running different specification front wings.
“The team have worked really hard back in the factory to bring an upgrade in the last two races and also an upgrade this weekend, but we only had one – which George has,” Hamilton explained. “So I anticipated it would be difficult to out-qualify George because he has the upgraded component.
“It’s just great to see that we are bringing upgrades. But once we got to qualifying… I don’t understand. I already know automatically that I’m going to lose two tenths going into qualifying. That’s definitely frustrating and it’s something that I don’t really have an answer for at the moment.
“I’m not driving any different, I think the laps are really great, I just couldn’t get the lap in for some reason.”
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Asked if he felt Monaco could mark a turning point for Mercedes’ performance this season, Hamilton replied “I think from the team’s perspective, yes.”
“I definitely think for some reason we’re a lot closer this weekend and it’s really great to see,” he continued. “The car, as I said, was feeling great – so much better than previous years. But still, three-and-a-half-tenths [from pole] is a lot here – that’s still six tenths elsewhere. So we still are off pace-wise.
“We’ve just got to keep on pushing. We’ll slowly get closer through the year as more upgrades come. I don’t anticipate being ahead of…
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