Hamilton encouraged by strongest qualifying of 2024 so far

Lewis Hamilton was feeling happy about his performance in today's qualifying session for the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka which saw him take seventh place, his best grid spot in the first four races of 2024.

It's also the first time that he's pipped his Mercedes team mate George Russell so far this season. Russell will start the race from ninth after a stewards review for an unsafe incident in Q1 fined the team €5000, but did not apply a grid penalty on e driver.

The overall outcome of qualifying left Hamilton feeling encouraged that he's started to unlock the mysteries of the W15 allowing him to finally begin moving in the right direction.

“It’s been a night and day different weekend so far, just in terms of how comfortable I’ve felt in the car,” Hamilton told the media in the paddock after qualifying, comparing it to the team's horror show in Melbourne.

“I think we did a really good job over this past week - just the analysis everyone has done in the factory trying to understand how we can get the car in the sweet spot," he explained.

• Read also: Verstappen and Perez lock out Japanese GP front row in Suzuka qualifying

“The car has been much nicer to drive this weekend, particularly at a track like this where you need a nice balance. This is the nicest it has felt over the last three years."

“What we’ve noticed is from track to track it has been really, really hard to get to get the set-up right," he pointed out. "It’s been so far out each time. In some places it just felt like nothing we could do got it in a sweet spot.

“But this weekend it’s much more in a sweet spot, so I hope that continues in the following races and then we’ve just got to add performance.”

While Hamilton was still seven tenths off the pole time set by Max Verstappen in the Red Bull, that compared to a full second difference the last time F1 raced here five months ago. That's despite the team having no new upgrades in Suzuka.

“This weekend I'm not trying all these different random things, I've been just much more focused on making sensible changes," he said. “I think it's worked, [although] I was hoping I'd be further ahead.

"If we’d done something a little bit different, maybe we could have been another tenth faster, maybe. But other than that, that was everything," he noted. “The [other] guys are just a little bit faster."

Hamilton said that the first sector here was the best of any circuit on the calendar. “It’s absolutely incredible when the car is where you want it to be, I can feel exactly where the car is weak.

"This is the perfect test track, it exposes the limitations of your car, where you need to improve it," he added. “I know what I'm going to say to my engineers now, where I need to pinpoint what they're going to work on.

“I think we got the car into a much nicer working window so every lap it’s been really enjoyable driving," he told Sky Sports F1. "I hope the race will be stronger for us tomorrow, I’ve really enjoyed driving so far this weekend.”

Russell meanwhile was relieved to avoid a grid penalty for an incident early in qualifying in which he was sent out of the Mercedes grid box dangerously close to Oscar Piastri's approaching McLaren.

A post-session review determined the Mercedes mechanic who released Russell did not check to see if the pit-lane was clear before releasing him from the box and gave the team a fine rather than penalising the driver.

It "is still the responsibility of the team to release the car in a safe manner," they noted. "Good practice would dictate that prior to the car being released, the pit lanes (both fast and working) should be checked for approaching vehicles."

As for his qualifying session, Russell said that a mistake on his final lap was responsible for his poor qualifying position. "If you don't do a great lap you end up P9, and that is what happened with me today.

"It isn't the most difficult race to overtake at though," he replied when asked about his prospects for the race. "With tyre degradation and different strategies, hopefully we can move forward tomorrow. A lot can certainly happen."

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