After qualifying P5, Lewis Hamilton is ready to battle for a “potential podium” in tomorrow’s Australian Grand Prix.
On the back of qualifying in Saudi – which saw him unable to reach Q2 and settle for P16 – P5 equals Hamilton’s best qualifying result of the season in Bahrain. However, this is the lowest he has qualified in Australia since 2010 when he placed 11th with McLaren.
Mercedes have not yet solved their issues with porpoising and after not bringing upgrades to Australia, their rocky start to the season looks likely to continue.
The Mercedes drivers have locked out the third row with Hamilton in P5 and Russell in P6. This makes it their best combined qualifying result to date however both drivers were still almost a second off the time set by pole-sitter Charles Leclerc.
Overall the seven-time world champ was “happy” with his result and believes “we did a decent job to get to where we are, we had a bigger deficit yesterday.”
More encouraging for the Mercedes fans is that there is more potential in the car. “I feel like there was a little more in the car so that is a positive” said Hamilton. “I am also naturally gutted I wasn’t able to extract that little bit but the problem is when you push that car a little but more she is quite spiteful.”
In regards to the potential in the grand prix itself Hamilton is confident “we’ve got a good fight up front and there are potential podiums possible…I am just going to be battling as hard as I can.”
Lights out is at 6am UK time tomorrow.
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