Lewis Hamilton admitted that the prospect of rain hitting Friday's Sprint qualifying session at Shanghai International Circuit had made him excited about Mercedes' chances of pulling off a surprise success.
Hamilton wasn't in the top ten in the first round of Sprint qualifying, but just survived the final cut at the end of SDQ2 as the rain started to really fall over the track forcing everyone on to intermediate tyres.
Hamilton delivered by punching in what appeared to be a pole-winning lap time of 1:59.201s - until Lando Norris pulled off a last minute flier that was over a second quicker, demoting Hamilton to shotgun position on tomorrow's grid.
Even so, it's the best performance in a qualifying session by Hamilton and Mercedes so far this season, which he freely admitted was down to the fortunate change in conditions.
"As soon as I saw the rain coming, I was getting excited because naturally in dry conditions, we are not quick enough," he said. "When the rain came, I thought I'd have a bit of an opportunity - and that is when it all came alive!"
"It was very tricky conditions, there was not a lot of grip as you saw for everyone," Hamilton told the media in parc ferme.after the end of qualifying.
However Hamilton is realistic about his chances on Saturday if the rain holds off. "If it is dry then naturally, the Ferraris and Red Bulls will come by," he admitted. "But maybe we can hold off some of the others.
"It will really depend on what the conditions will be. If it's like [today] then maybe we will have a chance of being up there."
"Obviously the driving is most important in the wet," noted Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. "But I think it shows it's about tyre preparation.
"We know our car; in terms of generating grip, it's not an easy task," he admitted. "We failed in Q1, Q2, then got it right in Q3.
"Both cars were not competitive in Q2 because the tyres never gripped," he added. "But we did the right things on the final run. The tyres were in the sweet spot combined with a great drive and that made the time."
Mercedes' poor pace in the dry was underlined by Hamilton's team mate George Russell failing to make it into the final round. Russell said that being stuck in the queue for his final run had been the reason for missing the cut.
"We tried sending it as early as we could, and then obviously got stuck. I think 12 cars were ahead of us, just sat in the pit lane, so we had a loss of tyre temperature.
"It was close - one more tenth and you are four or five positions higher. It's just a shame to be on the bottom end of that, but we've got a chance to recover in the sprint race. Maybe make some tweaks overnight and go from there.”
Unlike Hamilton, Russell hadn't been at all happy when the rain arrived. “I wouldn’t say [that my heart] sunk, just a little bit frustrated after the first lap. It was so close getting into Q3 - who knows what could have happened?"
While everyone agrees that the two Red Bull cars and both Ferraris will have the edge in pace in the Sprint if it's dry, Wolff thinks Norris could be vulnerable to attack from Hamilton at the start.
“I don’t think we have the pace against the Red Bulls, but we are against the McLarens," he said. “Having said that, we don’t know. We have no data from FP1. It could be that they are much quicker too, or the other way around.
It would have been even better for Mercedes if Norris' pole-winning lap time had been deleted for exceeding track limits, which was the original call from race control but then quickly revised.
However Wolff said he had no problem with the decision to reinstate the McLaren driver's time. "I haven't seen the detail," Wolff told Sky Sports F1 in the paddock in Shanghai. "I've just seen 'four tyres off track'.
"But honestly that was even slower, so he could have probably gone faster," Wolff concluded. "So I’m okay with that."
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