Lewis Hamilton rued the end of his final run in qualifying for the 2025 Formula 1 British Grand Prix, saying a snap of understeer at the final corner cost him a spot on the front row of the grid.
Hamilton topped Q2 to the delight of the partisan crowd cheering him on, and alighted a significant amount of hope that he could once again fulfil their wishes by putting the car on pole position.
But a mega final lap from Max Verstappen saw him claim a shock pole, and with the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris always in contention, there was never any room for the tiniest mistake.
A near-perfect lap from Hamilton was ruined with the chequered flag in sight, as the Ferrari visibly looked unsteady coming out of Club Corner to condemn him to just fifth place.
Hamilton put the ultimately disappointing result onto this pivotal moment in the lap, ensuring he was on the wrong side of a fine margin that may have seen him, at the very least, sitting on the front row.
“I just had understeer at Turn 16 and lost the time that I had,” Hamilton told media including Motorsport Week, adding: “It probably cost me at least a second.”
Hamilton also noted that his lap “was really, really nice up until the last corner” as he was forced to settle for a third-row start.
“It was the curve that put me a little wide, but then I just lost it,” he said.
“It was just over a tenth, so that definitely put me in for real.”
Low-speed understeer an ‘inherent’ problem for SF-25
The SF-25 has caused Hamilton a number of significant issues throughout this season, but as the season has progressed, it has seen improvements in high-speed corners.
But it still produced a handicap for Hamilton and team-mate Charles Leclerc in lower-speed areas, which Hamilton said is an unrelenting problem, leaving Hamilton to theorise that he and Leclerc are “overdriving” the car to compensate.
“I think at the end we’re at low-speed understeer, which is something that’s inherent with this car,” he said.
“So we’re probably having to go a little bit too far over, which then makes it where the cars are super picky. So we need a little bit more performance.”
Hamilton also pinpointed the tricky Silverstone winds, which was an issue for a number of drivers, saying the “up and down conditions definitely were challenging” and that it “maybe [was] not as good for us” when the temperatures cooled.
Leclerc lines up alongside his team-mate on the third row after qualifying sixth, a disappointing outcome given Ferrari’s promising pace in earlier practice sessions.
READ MORE – Lewis Hamilton dismisses concern over record F1 podium drought
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