Lewis Hamilton believes his Ferrari car is in a "better place" after changes going into Dutch Grand Prix qualifying and that the team can still be "optimistic" for Sunday's race despite starting on the third row. Ferrari are Mercedes' nearest challengers in both world championship races but qualified three tenths of a second away from pole at Zandvoort, F1's first event back after its summer break. Fifth-fastest Hamilton and sixth-fastest Charles Leclerc will start behind both Mercedes and McLaren cars for a race that Lando Norris starts on pole position. But fifth on the grid represented a step forward for Hamilton compared to the earlier Sprint sessions when he had qualified and finished seventh.
"Much different session, much different car," said Hamilton, who pipped Leclerc to the head of the third row with his final lap of Q3, to Sky Sports F1 after main qualifying. "In Practice, the car felt great and was consistent but there are always areas you feel you can improve so we made subtle changes to try and fix those improvements and it flipped the car on its head and it was horrible through Sprint Qualifying and the Sprint. I had no confidence in the balance.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player "We made all these changes into Qualifying so I was learning a new car again, a new balance which I'm much happier with - trying to progress with it and learning with only like six laps was a challenge. "Also all the Mercedes [powered cars] are ahead and we know we have a bit of a deficit on power so I think our race pace should be better and the car is better for the race." Saturday's earlier Sprint race had appeared to prove that Ferrari's car was a competitive proposition around the twisty, undulating Zandvoort circuit. Leclerc finished second, 1.3s behind winner George Russell, with his overtake on Norris with six laps to go the only change of position in the top 10 after the opening lap.
And despite the track not being especially friendly for overtaking, Hamilton is not ruling out the prospect of the SF-26 getting in the mix at the front again. "Fifth is not the greatest but it could be far worse, so I'm grateful to be there but of course I wish I was up further ahead. "However, our race pace was good in the Sprint.
Charles had good race pace and the car is in a better place "Hopefully with the right strategy and right execution I think hopefully we can challenge the cars ahead." Leclerc's overtake on Norris for second place with six laps to go in the Sprint had proved a relative surprise given he had been the only one of the front runners to run the 24-lap race on the soft tyres, a compound which is initially the fastest but on which performance falls away more quickly. He had therefore been tipped to contend for pole but the Monegasque never ultimately appeared a contender in any of the three knockout sections. "I don't think the conditions played a role," said Leclerc.
"I think we changed the power strategies a bit too much throughout qualifying then in Q3 I had some weird things going on, so we lost a bit of performance there. "At no time during qualifying [did I have] the potential of pole." Dropped to sixth on Sunday's grid thanks to Hamilton's late improvement, Leclerc added on his race prospects: "Realistically it will be very difficult to overtake on track but we will do our best and see where we end up. "Starting from sixth doesn't make our life easy, so it will be a tough race but the pace is there so I hope we can do something with strategy and offset ourselves to the others." Team principal Frederic Vasseur, though, took heart from their Sprint performance and said the fact the race was likely to be a multi-stop affair could play in their favour.
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