Hamilton proud he gave ‘absolutely everything’ despite ‘drastically different’ car in Monaco Qualifying

Lewis Hamilton was left perplexed by the difference in his Ferrari between the strong Free Practice sessions and Qualifying at the Monaco Grand Prix, in which he settled for third place after struggling to match the pace of Mercedes and Red Bull.

The Briton got off to a spectacular start in Monaco as he firmly established himself as one of the contenders for pole position with top three finishes across the practice hours, including setting the fastest lap in FP2.

But as he got stuck into the most important Qualifying session of the season – with overtaking spots limits around the narrow streets – Hamilton was unable to get up to speed and despite a monumental final effort, his lap of 1m 12.279s ended up being over two tenths shy of Kimi Antonelli’s pole time.

“Congrats to Kimi – mega job” he said. “Having your first pole here is so special, and obviously we’ve got such a great crowd here so it’s a beautiful day.

“Tough for us, I think we were looking so strong in Practice and we barely changed anything but the car was drastically different once we got to Qualifying for some reason, so we have to take a deep dive into that.

“I gave it absolutely everything and was as close to the barriers as I could be. What a privilege it is to be here and be one of the 22 drivers in Formula 1 getting to do this still. I love every second of it.”

The tiniest of margins separated the drivers in Q3, with Hamilton’s team mate Charles Leclerc only managing P4 at his home track after making an error and bumping into the barrier on his second attempt.

With a small deficit separating Ferrari from their rivals, Hamilton seemed to relish the competition and shared his optimism that they can continue battling at the top, both in Monaco and in the longer term.

He said: “I think it is definitely very close between us all. I mean jeez, I thought we almost maybe nearly had it and then Max put in a good time, and then Kimi… I think it’s great to see how close all the cars are.

“I think we lost something going into today and that’s what we need to try to figure out, but a big thank you to the guys back at the factory and the guys here. We haven’t added performance this weekend but we’re obviously there in the fight. I’m really keen and looking forward to seeing what developments we bring in the future.”