Lewis Hamilton rues missed P2 as inherent Ferrari weakness revealed

Lewis Hamilton believes he could have been on the front row of the grid at the British Grand Prix without a scrappy end to his qualifying lap.

The seven-time F1 world champion topped the second part of qualifying and looked to be in contention for pole position on his final flying lap of Q3 until he lost time in the final sector.

Hamilton, who has seven poles and a record nine victories at Silverstone, ultimately had to settle with the third row of the grid and fifth after ending up 0.203s adrift of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Asked what had happened in the final few corners of his lap, Hamilton explained: “I just had understeer at Turn 16 and lost the time that I had.”

Pressed on whether that had cost him pole, Hamilton replied: “It probably cost me at least second.”

“I’m really pleased with the progress,” Hamilton added. “I’m really pleased with the direction. My engineer and I have been really gelling a lot better in terms of how we set the car up and I was much happier in the car.

“The lap was really, really nice. Up until the last corner, there was a bit of understeer. It was the curb that put me a little wide, but then I just lost it.

“I think it was just over a tenth so that definitely would have probably put me on the front row.”

What is Ferrari’s fundamental weakness?

Hamilton, who outqualified Charles Leclerc for only the second time this season, said Ferrari’s SF-25 is struggling with an inherent understeer problem in low-speed corners.

According to the 40-year-old Briton, both he and Leclerc are having to “overdrive” their car to extract more performance.

“I think at the end we're at low-speed understeer, which is something that's inherent with this car,” he said.

“I think we're overdriving to get that extra bit of time. We're at an actual pure pace, I don't think the car is naturally as quick.

"So we're probably having to go a little bit too far over, which then makes it where the car’s super tricky. So we need a little bit more performance.

“Pretty much all the other sessions, the second run in Q3 has always been a little bit harder. But today I was progressing, which was positive. So I think I've I've taken a step there. I think there's still more to get.”

Asked if the issue is something that can be solved this season, Hamilton replied: “I don't know. I'm not sure it would be.”