Lewis Hamilton has praised the overnight work of his team to turn the car’s lackluster Friday pace into a surprise pole-setting performance.
Mercedes ended Friday practice anchored to the bottom of the time sheet, with Hamilton 16th and teammate George Russell last. While the raw times were due to neither driver using the soft tire, Hamilton described the car as being “at its worst” at a track he has historically dominated.
“It’s night and day different today,” he said. “Literally we turned it up on its head. Yesterday the car felt terrible. The balance was all over the place. It was very, very difficult to extract any performance from it.”
Work overnight on the Mercedes simulator in the UK delivered setup changes that reversed the team’s fortunes and put Hamilton in pole contention.
“What we do best is we work hard through the night,” he added. “The team works hard on the simulator, and we get a new direction on the Saturday. We made some really great changes to the car last night and it put us in a much better window, so I was then able to just build on that.”
Combined with Max Verstappen’s struggles with balance in his Red Bull, it was enough for Hamilton to snatch pole by a super-fine 0.003s.
“I started to get this confidence back today,” Hamilton said. “Today was a fun day, when you can really throw it into the corners and know that it’s going to just about stick with you.
“It was definitely still a fight through the lap. I think we still lack rear end — that’s our weakest point — but today it definitely was fun.”
Hamilton said the changes had given him enough faith in the car to reach for pole when he would otherwise have been more cautious.
“Once we got to Q2 it was looking quite decent all of a sudden,” he said. Then once we got to Q3 we were only a tenth off Max, and I knew I had more time I could find in the car.
“The car was just not quite up to it on the previous laps, but at the last point I just had to send it and hope I stayed on the track.
“What a feeling — an uplifting feeling — for everyone in the team.”
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Hamilton’s 104th pole is his first P1 start since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and his first front-row qualification since that year’s title-deciding race in Abu Dhabi.
Mercedes has struggled for competitiveness since then, claiming only one pole and win, both at the hands of George Russell last season.
The seven-time champion hinted that the drought had taken a mental toll on him, particularly given the way the 2021 campaign ended with his championship defeat.
“It’s an extraordinary feeling after you’ve been here for such a long time and you’ve had the success before,” he said. “Even though it’s 104 it feels like the first. It’s hard to explain how special it feels.
“I’m just so happy and happy for everyone in the team. It’s been a really, really difficult year and a half on a personal level, but then as a team collectively — so many ideas and trying to find the right path to be on and continue to have the motivation with everyone and keep everyone driven. That’s been the challenge for all of us. This is a team effort. The team deserves this today.”
Hamilton’s qualifying success set a new record for most poles at single grand prix, with nine Hungarian P1 starts.
Converting pole to victory will likewise see him break new ground for success at a single venue, with nine victories — unprecedented for one driver at one track.
The Briton was cautiously optimistic that Mercedes had a route to the top step of the podium.
“Normally it’s not a bad race car,” he said. “We tend to have decent race pace. Max’s race pace yesterday was, I think, quite extraordinary. I think they were quite a bit quicker than us.
“If there’ s a way to hold position, then maybe there’s a fighting chance for us. Just even being up there in the top three — we’re going to have a great race for sure.”