Saturday morning at Hockenheim raised alarms for Mercedes Formula 1 Team. Lewis Hamilton was reported that he might not be able to go-on in FP3.
Esteban Ocon would have replaced him if the world champion had reported-in sick.
However, Hamilton managed to play his part of the play for the day without problems. He went on to secure pole position at the teams home ground.
The title contending Ferrari’s drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc, were unlucky to be knocked-out of pole position.
Ferrari performed well during initial practices but failed to cater mechanical issues during FP3.
Hamilton commented on the scenario while answering to a question during post-qualifying press conference.
He said: “I wasn’t feeling good this morning, bit of a sore throat.
“So, we prepped just in case I wasn’t going to be able to do the session.
“I did the practice and we were prepared to be able to put the second driver [Ocon] in, that was the worst case scenario. [But] we got through, good.”
Hamilton’s qualifying session was not promising and had to retry during Q1.
He was surprised when he managed to get to pole position. He radioed to his engineer, “I don’t know how we did that.”
Hamilton and his team are separated by Max Verstappen, who will start on soft while the British will start on medium tyres.
“The team did a great job in terms of timing and getting us out at the right times,” Hamilton added.
“As you saw, both Ferraris dropped out. That made it a big different in terms of the battle that we had at the end.
“Nevertheless I think I had pretty good pace, I think maybe it would have been close between me and Leclerc, who knows?
“They’ve been pretty quick all weekend. But I was really, really happy with the laps I’d done, particularly Q2 onwards.
“The team have worked so hard, and it’s really great for Mercedes with the 125 years celebration this weekend. So [it] couldn’t have been a better way to start the weekend.”
The biggest threat
Hamilton considers the biggest threat at his pole position to be the weather. He said: “I think it’s the weather, it can be a threat.
“There was talk of rain even today, and tomorrow potentially more so.
“I’ve not looked at the long runs so I don’t know how strong they are on the long runs. But it’s not the easiest of tracks to overtake.”
