Lewis Hamilton believes he would have managed pole for Saturday’s United States Grand Prix dash race had he not been disrupted by yellow flags.
Hamilton was heard to query Mercedes’ resolution to place him and George Russell on observe so quickly into SQ3, though Russell demonstrated the staff’s rationale by placing collectively a time ok for second on the grid.
Behind him, Hamilton had discovered a big margin over Russell’s opening sector and was trying set to outqualify his team-mate – however he encountered a yellow flag within the second sector when Franco Colapinto spun at Flip 12.
GPS information reveals that Hamilton lifted a lot earlier on in comparison with Russell into that nook, which the seven-time champion encountered moments earlier than the yellow flag was eliminated, making a swing of virtually eight-tenths as Hamilton was monitoring at three-tenths forward of Russell – although the previous had additionally run huge when making an attempt to make up for the elevate.
Requested if he felt that it was a misplaced dash pole, Hamilton replied: “I simply bought unfortunate with the yellow flag. And that is what it’s. I used to be four-tenths up, however anyhow, it’s what it’s.
“The great factor is the staff has made a step with the automobile, the improve has clearly labored and I am actually grateful to everybody again on the manufacturing unit for all of the onerous work over this time period.
“It has been a tricky slog for everybody to get the improve and to be sure that they’re working. It isn’t the tip of the day. Tomorrow we get one other likelihood.”

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15
Picture by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Pictures
Each Mercedes drivers suffered spins in free apply because the W15 appeared tough to drive on the bumpy Circuit of the Americas observe, however a transparent enchancment was evident throughout dash qualifying.
“We did an excellent job in between [the sessions] to make modifications to the automobile,” Hamilton added.
“It is at all times a little bit of a big gamble as a result of you do not know whether or not or not it may work, the modifications that you just make, however you hope they do what you purpose to do with them.
“As quickly as I bought into the automobile, it was like night time and day completely different. So it was nice work from the blokes within the storage and with Bono [race engineer Pete Bonnington] and Mike [performance engineer Michael Sansoni] – it was an excellent job.”