Lewis Hamilton says he was on a good final lap when qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix was ended by Daniil Kvyat's heavy crash.
Kvyat lost control at Turn 10 and hit the barriers at high-speed before rolling over in the gravel trap, bringing out the red flags in the final minute of Q3. The incident prevented anyone from improving, and Hamilton had to settle for second on the grid to team-mate Nico Rosberg having made errors on his first run.
“It doesn’t really matter but the second lap was looking good," Hamilton said. "On the first lap I lost a bit of time in Turn 11 and I think the last corner. Nico is driving well this weekend but I definitely felt pretty good on that last lap. But I’m glad Kvyat is safe.”
With Hamilton and Rosberg trading fastest times throughout qualifying, the championship leader says he had been enjoying the battle.
“I think the great thing about this sport is there’s never the perfect car. It’s always evolving, it’s always improving, there’s always areas you can improve on. My engineers did a fantastic job trying to get it set up in a nice place and it was an exciting qualifying with the [close] gap to Nico, a shame I didn’t get to do that last lap.”
Asked if there was a sense of relief at Mercedes after its struggles in Singapore, Hamilton hinted he was still sceptical about the pace shown by both Ferrari and Red Bull last weekend.
“Well the guys worked incredibly hard to try and understand last week and it’s great to be back up here. It’s very strange obviously when you see the pace of some of the people behind but definitely the car feels quite normal this weekend which is great to see.”
REPORT: Rosberg takes pole after huge Kvyat crash
AS IT HAPPENED: Japanese Grand Prix Qualifying
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