Lewis Hamilton says his aim for the Spanish Grand Prix remains to “win somehow”, despite a mistake in qualifying costing him a probable place on the front row.
The seven-time World Champion has not stood on the top step of a Formula 1 podium since December 2021, and he has accrued only one podium to his name across the opening six rounds of this year.
Hamilton will line up fourth on the grid after an error into Turn 10 on his final run in Q3 denied him the prospect of lining up alongside Max Verstappen at the front.
Despite Red Bull being well poised to continue its dominance of the 2023 campaign this weekend, Hamilton states his ambition is still to fight for a record-breaking seventh victory in Barcelona on Sunday.
“My goal is to win somehow,” the Briton declared. “I’m going to try and drive the wheels off the car and try and get up as high as I can.”
Following a lowkey Friday that saw him classified outside of the top 10 in both practice sessions, Hamilton had suggested reaching Q3 would be a “struggle”.
However, the Mercedes driver topped the times in Q1 and consistently appeared to be the closest challenger to the Red Bull of Verstappen over a single lap.
Hamilton hailed the progress his side of the garage was able to make overnight and believes it is “massively encouraging” for Mercedes to be in such competitive shape already with the heavily revised package it launched last weekend in Monaco.
“It was interesting because during the session I was thinking, ‘Damn, yesterday I said I wasn’t going to get into Q3 or into the top 10, and basically I was eating my words’,” he remarked.
“It was a really, really great session and massively encouraging to us to be competitive. I couldn’t believe I was fighting for the top three at one stage.
“Of course, my last lap wasn’t the dream lap, I was second basically all the way until Turn 10 and I had a snap and lost two-tenths. On one side I’m gutted, but one side of me is really grateful just to be up there, up in the fight and have that pace.”
Hamilton was Mercedes’ only hopeful in the Q3 shootout after George Russell struggled with the balance of his car on his way to being a surprise early casualty in Q2.
While the pair will be separated by eight positions on Sunday’s grid, they did manage to get too close for the team’s liking in the dying embers of Q1.
A miscommunication as both sought to embark on one final run in the opening session witnessed Russell fail to realise Hamilton was directly behind him heading down to Turn 1, resulting in the latter sustaining front-wing damage on his W14.
Russell, who will start a lowly 12th, was handed a warning for the incident, while Hamilton progressed to Q3 in the sister car, where he eventually set the fifth fastest time.
Two separate three-place grid penalties for Alpine’s Pierre Gasly for impeding other drivers in qualifying subsequently bumped Hamilton up one spot to fourth.
