Lewis Hamilton says changes to his Ferrari F1 car put it on a “knife edge” during qualifying at the Chinese Grand Prix.
After converting his first Ferrari pole position into a convincing victory during the China sprint race on Saturday morning, seven-time world champion could only qualify fifth on the grid for Sunday’s grand prix.
Hamilton ended up three-tenths adrift of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who claimed his maiden F1 pole, but outqualified teammate Charles Leclerc by 0.094s for an all-Ferrari third row in Shanghai.
“We started really optimistic but we made a couple of changes, small tweaks to the car, and it really put the car on a knife edge,” Hamilton explained.
“The wind picked up a bit as well, so the car was trickier to drive and harder to put laps together.
“You want a car that’s balanced. At the moment from one corner to the next, the car has a different balance.
“We made the change then all of a sudden in the high-speed it was overbalanced, so you want a car you can rely on and when you attack the corners, you know it will stay with you rather than lock-up or go into oversteer.
“When it’s unpredictable you have no hope.”
Asked if he thinks he can still have the pace he demonstrated in the sprint race, Hamilton replied: “I mean, I hope so. I really do hope so. We made some changes to improve race performance, but it was definitely harder on a single lap, so it’s gonna be interesting tomorrow.
“It’s a great track to race on. It’s not a circuit where you only have one line everywhere, so that’s the positive. But, you can see people still struggling to follow one another this morning. So how you use the tyres, when you use the tyres is going to be key tomorrow.
“I’m in a much different position as well, but I feel optimistic for tomorrow.
“I think I would like to get a good start and jump at least one car and then slowly make up. Tonight I’m just gonna make a master plan of how to win and I’ve got to try and execute it, but that’s where my mindset is at.”
Leclerc, who suffered his first defeat to Hamilton in regular qualifying in China, admitted that P5 and P6 on the grid is a fair reflection of Ferrari’s current competitiveness.
“[In qualifying] the potential was just not there,” the Monegasque conceded.
”The overall grip was just not there. In Australia I felt like we didn’t do a great job in qualifying and we were further away than we thought but if we had put everything together I think we were expecting to be three tenths off.
“I think these three tenths that we see today are generally where we are. Lewis did a great, great job yesterday but I feel like today I did a good job, I’m sure Lewis did a good job as well, and that’s the potential of the car.
“Is there a little bit more in the car? Maybe. Three tenths I don’t think so. We need to look forward to tomorrow.”
