“Ultimately, you’ll look at it and say there are certain areas where we… Like, for example, the last run we were the first out, we were out too early. And also, we didn’t have another set [of tyres] like [some of] the others did.
“Otherwise, I’m pretty happy with it. I think we worked as hard as we could and it was the best we could get.”
FACTS AND STATS: Perez bags first front row start since China after scraping into Q3 by 0.003s
With weather conditions set to switch back to the dry on Sunday, Hamilton was asked for his thoughts on Mercedes’s potential in race-trim, and how quickly he expects Verstappen to recover from P11.
“Ah, Max will make his way through pretty quick,” said the seven-time world champion. “I think their car is the fastest here this weekend, or at least tied with McLaren.
“For us, we just have to keep our head down and try and hold position. I’ve got to try and see if I can keep up with the guys ahead of me, but I’ll give it everything and I’m hoping the changes we made will make things better for tomorrow.”
As for Russell, who was 0.349s slower than Hamilton in Q3, the younger Briton said: “I think it [seventh] was a fair result, to be honest.
