Lewis Hamilton thanked his team for the rapid rebuild of his Mercedes car after qualifying third for the Belgian Grand Prix.
The Briton slid into the barrier during final practice, with the mechanics still putting the final parts back together as Q1 took place at Spa-Francorchamps.
He would repay them by finishing closest to the two rampant Ferrari’s, in fact sitting just 0.015s behind Sebastian Vettel.
“P3 was a terrible session for me,” Hamilton told Timo Glock on the grid post-qualifying.
“It’s painful because you know how many people work so hard to build those parts, and how hard the guys work to put the car together, and I knew that was going to be a tough challenge.
“My guys are just faultless. They always work and give 110% and I’m so grateful for that. I was just trying to pay them back with a good qualifying session. So, considering I missed all of P3, and a lot of P1 actually, I’m grateful to be up here.”
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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff wasn’t so cheerful, however, as he bemoaned the substantial power deficit between themselves and Ferrari.
“It’s not seven-tenths it’s 1.3 seconds to Leclerc,” he told the media.
“We knew it would be difficult – third and fourth was what we expected but the power is ridiculous on the Ferrari on these kinds of tracks.
“Today we tripped over our own feet,” the Austrian added pointing to botched efforts to gain a slipstream. “You want to do it extra perfect and you look like an idiot and this happened twice today.”
Mercedes are expecting more on Sunday though after a strong long run on Friday when the party modes are less effective.
“There is everything to play tomorrow we have a strong race car, we know they (Ferrari) have suffered in the races, and they had the temperature advantage [today] as it’s going to be colder tomorrow,” Wolff assured.
“I’m still upset about today.”
