07 October 2023 , 21:10
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Lewis Hamilton declared his Mercedes car is "still tricky to drive" despite a strong performance in the Qatar Grand Prix Sprint race.
The seven-time world champion's qualifying struggles continued on Saturday morning as he was knocked out in the second part of the Sprint Shootout. That condemned him to start 12th on the grid for the short-form race in the afternoon.
Starting on the medium tyre, he was slow at the beginning compared to those on the soft compound around him. But the decision paid off later on as other lost grip due to the high degradation.
So Hamilton was fairly pleased as he spoke after rising up to fifth place. "I was quite slow at the beginning on the medium tyre. I knew that the degradation would be high though and that the race would come back to us," he said.
"Did I know that I was going to be able to get back up to fifth? No, but I was hoping I could the whole time. I tried to position my car the best I could, stay out of trouble and progress one step at a time. The car is still tricky to drive but our pace overall was good. I know I've got the race craft on lock. I just need to work on my qualifying!
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"That said, tomorrow we start third. That is obviously a much better place to be lining up than we were today. We should be looking to fight to hold that position. We know it will be difficult to hold the McLarens behind. They are a little further back though, so we will be doing our best to do that."
Team-mate George Russell started on the softs and used it to great advantage at the start. He rose up to second by the first corner and later took the lead, but lost it again to winner Oscar Piastri as his tyres fell off and was also overtaken by Max Verstappen and Lando Norris before the end.
Regardless, he was a happy man despite being caught off guard by just how quickly the effectiveness of his tyres faded. "I really enjoyed that!" he declared. "The first lap was a little bit wild. I had turn six in my mind as the overtaking opportunity on the medium runners.
"I knew I would have the advantage at the beginning, so I was pleased to pull off the move on Piastri. I was surprised by how quickly the soft tyre dropped off and we were fortunate that there were a number of safety car interventions. Without that, we may have finished outside the points.
"That is what can happen during a sprint weekend, though, where you have limited practice and limited knowledge on the tyres. Having said that, if we were on the medium we would have still finished P4. Nothing gained, nothing lost."