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Lewis Hamilton was not in the best of moods after qualifying and felt mystified by the loss of pace compared to his teammate at the Monaco GP. The driver had a great Friday and Saturday FP sessions. On Friday, he was P1 in FP1 and P2 in FP2 behind Charles Leclerc. The qualifying session however proved to be a bit of a surprise.
After trailing Lewis Hamilton all weekend, George Russell found his groove in qualifying and had the edge over his teammate. Even though the gap between the two wasn't huge, it was still enough to cause a gap of two grid positions between the two by the end. While Lewis qualified in P7, George was in P5 and beat his illustrious teammate once again in qualifying.
After eight events, Lewis Hamilton now trails George Russell 1-7 in qualifying, a number that shows a massive gulf between the two drivers. Talking to Sky Sports after qualifying, Lewis was not entirely sure what went wrong. The driver did hint that maybe the upgrades played a role as George had the upgrade while Lewis didn't. He said:
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"It felt great yesterday. We have been working really hard to improve this car and from the get-go it felt great. We obviously benefitted yesterday and this morning. We are not making any drastic changes or anything like that. The team have worked really hard back at the factory to bring an upgrade to the last two races and also an upgrade this weekend but we only have one, which George has."
Lewis Hamilton added:
"I anticipated it would be difficult to outqualify George because he has the upgraded component but it's great to see we are bringing upgrades. Once we got to Qualifying, I don't understand. I already know automatically that I'm going to lose two tenths going into Qualifying. That's definitely frustrating and something I don't have an answer for. I'm not driving any different. The laps were great. Just lacking for some reason."
Toto Wolff happy with the P5 for George Russell and P7 for Lewis Hamilton
Talking to the media after qualifying, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was happy with the result. Lewis Hamilton on P7 and George Russell on P5 also meant that the gap to the front had shrunk to only three tenths.
Talking to Sky Sports, Toto Wolff said that the team was missing a tiny bit in terms of lap time, or else a P2 result was also on the cards. Highlighting how George was only 0.27 seconds behind pole position, Wolff told Sky Sports:
"I think P5, P7 is just the same-same a bit. The pace was good. We were just missing a tiny bit to P2. We hit all the targets but maybe that is the pace of the car at the moment. Being 0.270s away from pole is OK in Monaco."
Lewis Hamilton did not look too happy after qualifying at the Monaco GP and there is a valid reason as well. The driver is now 1-7 in qualifying, and that's certainly a major gap for someone who has been a specialist when it comes to single-lap pace.
