Lewis Hamilton was left surprised by the gap in his Ferrari between a strong free practice session and qualifying at the Monaco Grand Prix, in which he dropped to third after struggling to match the pace of Mercedes and Red Bull.
The Briton made a great debut in Monaco and firmly established himself as one of the pole position contenders with a top-three finish in practice hours, including setting the fastest lap in FP2.
But when he got stuck in the most important qualifying session of the season – with a limit on overtaking spots around the narrow lanes – Hamilton was unable to get up to speed and despite a monumental final effort, his lap of 1 m 12.279 s fell two tenths behind Kimi Antonelli’s pole time.
“Congratulations to Kimi – mega job,” he said. “It’s very special to have your first pole here, and obviously we’ve got such a good crowd here so it’s a beautiful day.
“Tough for us, I think we looked very strong in practice and we barely changed anything, but for some reason once we got to qualifying the car was quite different, so we have to dig deeper into it.
“I put absolutely everything into it and was as close to the barriers as I could be. What a privilege it is to be here and to be one of 22 drivers in Formula 1 to still have the chance to do it. I love every second of it.”
The smallest margin separated the drivers in Q3, with Hamilton’s teammate Charles Leclerc only managing P4 at his home track after making an error and hitting the barrier on his second attempt.
With little to distinguish Ferrari from its rivals, Hamilton enjoyed the competition and shared his optimism that they could continue to fight at the top both in Monaco and in the long term.
He said: “I think it’s definitely very close between all of us. I mean God, I thought maybe we almost had it and then Max had a good time, and then Kimi… I think it’s great to see how close all the cars are.
“I think we lost something today and we need to try to figure it out, but a big thank you to the guys who work at the factory and the people here. We haven’t added performance this weekend, but we’re clearly in the fight. I’m really intrigued and looking forward to seeing what developments we bring in the future.”