Lewis Hamilton was satisfied after refocusing from a Q2 spin to clinch his 91st Formula 1 pole at the British Grand Prix.
The world champion had a scare when he lost the rear of his Mercedes through Luffield and slid through the gravel trap, causing a red flag period to clear the stones.
But showed exactly why he is F1’s top man by brushing it off and going on to produce two incredible laps to beat teammate Valtteri Bottas by three-tenths of a second.
“Qualifying is a lot about confidence-building and damn, I had that spin,” Hamilton said.
A rare misstep from @LewisHamilton in Q2 ?#BritishGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/uHmUnq26aY
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 1, 2020
“I was already down through the first section every lap and I don’t know how but, with some deep breaths [I] managed to compose myself.
“Q3 started off the right way. It still wasn’t perfect the first lap but was still a really clean lap, and the second one even better.”
Hamilton’s new lap record of 1m24.303s also put him over a second clear of Max Verstappen in third, once again highlighting the sheer dominance of Mercedes.
But that was of little concern to the Briton, who is now focused on beating his teammate on Sunday.
“There’s a relatively big gap obviously between us and third place but that doesn’t matter,” he said.
“At the end of the day, Valtteri is pushing me right to the limit, and he’s been doing such a fantastic job all weekend.”
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Finally, Lewis also spoke of the challenge of Silverstone and particularly how the wind makes it hard to find the perfect lap.
“This track is just awesome because, with the gusting wind you have a head-wind, tail-wind and cross-wind at different parts of the circuit,” he explained.
“It’s like juggling balls whilst you’re on a moving plate and at high speed.”
