Lewis Hamilton has disagreed with Toto Wolff's assessment that the Mercedes driver was on a lap good enough for Formula 1 pole position at the Dutch Grand Prix. Hamilton was third after the first runs in the Q3 shootout and was among the last cars on track to begin their final flying laps. Max Verstappen moved to P1, pipping Charles Leclerc by 0.021s, with Carlos Sainz Jr then demoting Hamilton down to fourth, but the Mercedes driver was on a quick lap. However, before he could finish it, Sergio Perez crashed at the final corner, bringing out the yellow flags and an end to the session. Wolff felt post-session that his driver was on a lap good enough to snatch pole position at Zandvoort.
Hamilton 'tenth up' on Verstappen
Hamilton was forced to settle for fourth and George Russell sixth, with the elder Briton using two new sets of Soft tyres for each run, as opposed to Russell's sole new tyre run - which was the one disrupted. "It's very frustrating," Wolff explained to Sky Sports F1, as Hamilton still searches for a first top-three grid slot of the season. "We were a tenth of a second faster than Verstappen and Leclerc, so Lewis was battling for pole position. He was ahead of them. "At the end he wasn't, Perez was pushing and lost control, so we can't blame him for this." Hamilton has scored at least one pole position in every season of his F1 career, with there now being just seven chances left for him to ensure he keeps that particular record going.
Hamilton disagrees with pole claims
"I think is highly optimistic. I think that they [Verstappen and Leclerc] was still a bit too quick," the seven-time World Champion explained to media including RacingNews365.com. "But I think the front row was possible. "I'm much happier coming in this weekend and to have a car that's fighting potentially for a front row. "We just don't understand when it can be so far off, and then next weekend all of a sudden, we're right there, so I think it's confusing for sure. "But there's positives to take from today and I think if we hadn't have had the yellow flag, we would have been hopefully fighting for the front row, so that's really positive."
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