Mercedes’ car still “doesn’t like” being pushed to the limit

Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes still have more to do to compete with their rivals in qualifying after falling short of the front row in Spain.

His team mate George Russell took pole position two weeks ago at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve which has mostly slow and short corners. Around the longer, faster corners of the Circuit de Catalunya this weekend the Mercedes drivers qualified on the second row, three-tenths of a second off the pace.

Hamilton believes the team need to focus on mastering how their tyres perform in order for the drivers to get the most out of the W15 in qualifying trim.

“I still lost a little bit [of performance] going into quali,” he said. “It’s all about perspective, maybe they just moved forwards, but I definitely feel like there was a little bit more.

“But just as you start to push the car, it doesn’t like it. 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.

“I think it’s all in the tyres. You saw in [Q1] I was seven tenths down due to an issue with the [tyre] blankets. And then we got it sorted for the following sessions. So it puts you a little bit on the back foot.

“But 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.”

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Hamilton’s third place is the first time he has qualified in the top three for a grand prix this season. “It’s good to be back up here,” he said in the press conference afterwards. “I miss being on this sofa, although it’s not from Ikea.

“But generally, it’s great to see that we’re progressing. Really, you’ve seen over the last couple of races that we’re slowly climbing closer to the guys up front. So I think there’s a little bit more performance in the car today.

“But it’s really on the knife-edge, so we’ve got some improvements to make to the car. But I’m really happy to be P3, it is a pretty good spot to be in for the start with that long straight down to turn one.”

He said the team’s deficit to pole-winner Lando Norris was “a pretty big chunk” but “for a track like this, it’s not too bad.”

“Through the lap, there’s a little bit of time [lost], I think. It probably could have been two tenths, but still they have a slight…