Lewis Hamilton, who led by three-tenths of a second after FP3 in Montreal, was unable to challenge George Russell for pole position in qualifying after his great feeling with the W15 “vanished”.
Fitted with Mercedes’ upgraded front wing, Briton Hamilton made a positive start to the Canadian Grand Prix weekend, declaring himself “very excited” after a strong start on Friday.
Lewis Hamilton fails to take part in pole fight in Canada
“I feel like I came close to the top this weekend,” he added.
He bettered his Friday mood by setting a P1 time 0.374 seconds faster than Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in Saturday’s final practice session.
But unfortunately, the good feelings ended there.
The Mercedes driver advanced to Saturday afternoon’s pole position shootout with the second-fastest time in Q2, just behind teammate Russell on the timesheets, but a lack of grip in the final segment meant he finished seventh.
Hamilton was 0.280 seconds slower than Russell’s pole position time.
He says his positive impression of the W15 has vanished.
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“The car has been great all weekend,” he told Sky Sports.
“First of all, congratulations to George for a great job. It’s really great for the team. Everyone here has worked so hard on the upgrade so this is a great encouragement for everyone at the factory.”
“The car was running well all weekend, but then when we got to qualifying it just disappeared.”
“The grip just disappeared,” he added. “We had good pace in FP3 but when it came to qualifying the tyres just didn’t work.”
When I asked him if anything had changed with the car, he shook his head and said, “Nothing has changed with the car.”
The seven-time world champion denied suggestions that the track conditions had an impact, with a few drops of rain falling midway through qualifying.
“The conditions were fantastic,” he told media. “The conditions were perfect but for some reason the tyres just didn’t work throughout the session. There was no grip.”
“We easily had a half-second advantage in FP3 and then it just disappeared.”
Hamilton lost to Russell in the qualifying rounds and is trailing his compatriot by 1-8.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmk6Yl4Nhk
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