Hamilton still hampered by "subtle change" in Zandvoort sprint

Lewis Hamilton has revealed that a "subtle change" after practice was behind his struggles across the sprint phase of the Dutch Grand Prix weekend. 

The Ferrari driver qualified and finished in seventh place in the sprint race, and was unable to cling on to the coattails of Max Verstappen ahead. 

This was somewhat of a surprise, after both he and team-mate Charles Leclerc, who finished the sprint race in second place, had shown strong pace in the weekend's sole practice session. 

Speaking to Sky Sports after the Saturday race, Hamilton was asked if he expects things will improve ahead of qualifying. 

"I hope so, yeah," he said. 

"The car felt quite good in P1, and then just a subtle change and it threw the car really into a different direction in [sprint] qualifying, which we carried into the race. 

"So I hope that we can make that change back to something similar we had in P1."

The sprint race saw all but two drivers complete the 24-lap distance on medium tyres, with Leclerc and Ollie Bearman the outliers on soft rubber.

With the compound holding on far better than had been expected, it opens up options that teams could look to exploit on Sunday.

Asked if the soft tyres had been 'the obvious choice' for him, Leclerc said: "Well, it wasn't, because we had Lewis and I on two different strategies. So surely it wasn't obvious. 

"But I thought it was a good tyre after FP1, even though I had done very few laps and I wasn't so comfortable with the medium. So, yeah, I was happy with that choice."