Lewis Hamilton qualified on the front row of the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix grid after leaving the track altogether after final practice, the seven-time world champion revealed. He also said it is something that he has never done before in his long Formula 1 career, but it worked a treat as the Brit reset himself well after a difficult final hour of practice.
Having missed the first hour of practice, giving his car to Ferrari junior Dino Beganovic for FP1 on Friday, Hamilton found himself playing catch-up. Speaking after qualifying, the 41-year-old revealed how he was still miles off it heading into qualifying, and the unusual act he did to refocus and find his groove again just in time.
He said: "It feels great to be up here with them. Honestly, this weekend has been so difficult. Normally it's okay to miss FP1, but it had a huge offset, so when I went to FP2 I was just over a second off and I just didn't quite feel comfortable. And these tyres only last one lap, right? So you only have two shots in each session. And even if you do a cool-down lap and go again, the car balance is completely off and it's not a good reference."
"So I went to FP3 and, again, I was easily four or five tenths off and I was thinking, 'Jeez, where's my pace?' I left the track between FP3 and qualifying, I went back to my motor home and came back."
"And in Q1, I was first so I knew I had good balance and I was really comfortable in that session. Q2 was a little bit harder with traffic and everything, and then these guys did a great lap. Congrats to George, but we're in a good position to be able to fight tomorrow. We have a race!"
Hamilton is well-placed to extend his podium streak to three races after finishing second in the Canadian and Monaco Grands Prix on the last two race weekends. But a small part of that is dreaming of being able to do even better than that, despite having been unable to compete with Mercedes over a Grand Prix distance yet in 2026.
Hamilton said: "All weekend, we've been four-tenths off these guys. Even with the upgrades we've got, we thought that was maybe where we were. For us to be this close, less than a tenth between us, it's a real showing of the hard work that everyone at the factory has done to bring these upgrades to this track, so a big thank you to everyone back at Maranello."
"We've just got to keep pushing, keep developing and I'm hoping tomorrow we can squeeze some more out of this and, hopefully, keep up with these guys for once."
It was a difficult session for team-mate Charles Leclerc, however. He made it through to the top 10 shootout and was expected to be in the fight for the front rows of the grid, but never got the chance as he lost control of his Ferrari and crashed it.
