Lewis Hamilton spies Ferrari improvement after Charles Leclerc dominance

Lewis Hamilton has spied a minor positive he can carry forward at Ferrari, with an improvement to his qualifying.

At the Canadian Grand Prix, Hamilton out-qualified team-mate Charles Leclerc for the third time in grands prix, and crucially, for the first time back-to-back after taking fifth to Leclerc's eighth. 

The 0.156s advantage to Hamilton was his best over Leclerc of the season, with Leclerc 7-3 up in grand prix qualifyings and 8-4 in total once Sprints are included. 

In grands prix, Leclerc has an average advantage of 0.195s over Hamilton, which actually falls to 0.163s once the two Sprints are taken into account. 

Single lap pace has not been Hamilton's forte for a number of years, with his race pace remaining strong, but the seven-time champion felt his efforts in Montreal on Saturday had set up a strong race chance until things went wrong. 

"My qualifying was better, and I was holding on [to the cars ahead] until the damage,"  Hamilton explained to media including RacingNews365. 

"I was sort of holding onto Piastri, and then with the damage, started to drop off.

"We probably should have stopped around a similar time, but for some reason, we stayed out, and then I lost a ton of time and came out behind a bunch of people and was stuck there. 

"But to come away with fifth and sixth, it is a positive. If everything was perfect, if we had done everything right and didn't have any problems, maybe we would have been fourth, but then I hit the groundhog."