“He had a very strong recovery today, a solid race that he came back P5. I think the race time compared to the top two, top three is almost similar. For me it was okay. Today he was very strong, consistent. Now with the field that we have, if you miss two or three-tenths in Quali because you do a mistake, you lose six or seven positions.”
Reflecting further on Hamilton’s disappointment after Qualifying, the Team Principal continued: “The fact that he was a bit down [on Saturday] evening, I like it. Because if the guy is coming back in P10 and he says it’s a shame, for sure he was disappointed because he was much better all the weekend so far.
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“Now we know that it’s happened like this in F1 today, that it was not the case three, four years ago, that if you had five-tenths between the team because you do a mistake, you lose one position, one row. Today you lose five-tenths, you can lose six or seven positions.
“I think Charles was on the first row but, if it was three or four-hundredths slower, he would have been P6. It’s always relative that we have to stay calm in terms of judgment of the performance, because sometimes for almost nothing, you can change a good weekend into a [very bad one].
“I appreciated the reaction of Lewis [after Qualifying]. I did my best to push him a little bit. Today he was in a very good shape and a very strong shape, but let’s start from there next week and hope to do [our] best.”
