Lewis Hamilton was not too disappointed to narrowly miss out on pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix, after “big changes” were made to the setup of his Mercedes W07.
Team-mate Nico Rosberg has topped all track sessions so far at Suzuka, but Hamilton came within 0.013s of pipping his title rival in Q3 after trailing him by over four tenths in the middle phase of qualifying.
Having said on Friday that he had yet to master the historic figure of eight circuit, the Briton was quite content with Saturday afternoon showing.
“I’m happy with qualifying,” Hamilton said. “It’s been a weekend of a lot of work to get the car set up right and some big changes went into qualifying
“Considering that, to be that close, I was really happy with it. I got everything I could. I did as well as I could. Naturally if you have more laps I guess you could always find more time.”
Hamilton will line up second behind Rosberg for the third consecutive time at Suzuka, with the triple world champion keen to emulate his achievements from the past two years when he beat his team-mate to victory.
“You don’t have to be on pole to get the win but Nico did a great job and has done all weekend.”
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