Lewis Hamilton acknowledged his final laps in qualifying were “not good enough” as he qualified a lowly eighth for the Japanese Grand Prix.
While Max Verstappen took a sensational F1 pole position at Suzuka ahead of both McLaren drivers, seven-time world champion Hamilton struggled and looked short of table-topping pace throughout the session.
In the end, he was only eighth-fastest – behind both Mercedes drivers and Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar – and was three-tenths off Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc in fourth.
“Not good enough from my side, P8 is not great,” Hamilton said afterwards.
“I was happy to get into Q3, it’s a really tight battle, just didn’t get great laps in in Q3.”
Hamilton admitted that Ferrari are running a higher ride-height on their car this weekend, as a result of their disqualifications a fortnight ago in China, but insisted there was optimism ahead of the race on Sunday – which could be impacted by rain.
“We are running higher than we’d like,” Hamilton said. “I don’t know if everyone is in the same boat in that respect, it’s higher than we want to be from the weekend before.
“Charles did a great lap. I had a lot of understeer and couldn’t dial it up for qualifying.”
On the potential for a wet-race, the 40-year-old added: “I’m excited, I love the rain.
TOP-10 – JAPAN GP QUALIFYING
1. Max Verstappen – 1:26:983
2. Lando Norris +0.012
3. Oscar Piastri +0.044
4. Charles Leclerc +0.316
5. George Russell +0.335
6. Kimi Antonelli +0.572
7. Isack Hadjar +0.586
8. Lewis Hamilton +0.627
9. Alex Albon +0.632
10. Ollie Bearman +0.884
“It’ll be tricky, if you have a qualifying like that you hope for rain, so hopefully it stays.”
Hamilton is currently ninth in the championship standings, having won the sprint race in Shanghai, but will be looking for a strong start on Sunday to make up some positions early on.
The Brit’s teammate Leclerc, however, was satisfied with his lap in the final stage of qualifying.
“I think the lap was really, really good,” he said.
“Not much I could have done better. We unlocked some performance yesterday, today in qualifying it started to go away from us a little bit, especially in Q3.
“Overall, the lap… I was really happy with it. There’s still a big gap to McLaren and Red Bull, but as a whole, it’s been positive, I feel a lot more confident with the car.”
The race on Sunday takes place at 6am (BST).
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