Lewis Hamilton was left confused as to why he lacked pace on the intermediate tyres after showing promising pace in the second part of qualifying on the full wet.
The McLaren driver will start a disappointing eighth to compound a bad day for McLaren which saw Jenson Button fail to even reach Q2.
Hamilton couldn’t explain why he was over two seconds slower than Fernando Alonso who qualified on pole in the wet conditions.
“I don’t really know what happened in Q3,” he said. “The full wets had been working really well, but, as the track gradually became less wet, I sought better grip and switched to the Intermediates – but we struggled to get enough temperature into them and just couldn’t switch them on.
“So I had very little grip on the inters, having felt more confident on the full wets; obviously, we’ll have to try to analyse the problem overnight and hopefully fix it for tomorrow.”
The 27-year-old is more hopeful for Sunday’s race, which he’s hoping the weather
Looking ahead to Sunday, Hamilton is hopeful that the weather will allow him to fight those ahead.
“I want to give a shout-out to the fans. They’ve been fantastic: very patient and so supportive. The cheers from the grandstands were spectacular. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a car on the front row for them, but we can still push tomorrow.
“Although eighth position isn’t the best place from which to be starting, it’s going to be a tough race and we’re not that far away.”
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