Lewis Hamilton: The result could have been much worse

      The Ferrari drivers were the last to head out for their final attempt in qualifying at Zandvoort and recorded the fifth and sixth fastest times. Charles Leclerc does not believe that this strategic decision reduced their chances in the fight for higher positions. His teammate Lewis Hamilton is pleased with his fifth position on the grid, as he thought he would end up around eighth place. Lewis Hamilton (5th): "I'm happy to have achieved this result, as at one point I was in eighth place and thought that was it. I didn't feel confident in the balance, and before qualifying we completely changed the settings. I actually had to get reacquainted with the car, but now I'm much happier with the balance. Of course, I only had six laps to figure everything out, so it was a challenging task. Ahead of us, four cars with Mercedes engines will start, and we know that we are lacking power compared to them. But I still think that over the race distance we should look better. Of course, starting in fifth place is not the dream scenario, but the result could have been much worse, so I'm satisfied. We have a decent race pace – we showed good speed in the sprint. I'm feeling optimistic and hope that with the right strategy we can fight with the competitors ahead." Charles Leclerc (6th): "I don't think that the later track exit and weather conditions played any role. I believe we just slightly overdid it by changing the power unit settings during qualifying before the final. There were some oddities with the engine's performance, which caused me to lose a bit of speed. In any case, during qualifying we didn't have the potential to fight for pole. I hope the situation will change in the race, but if we look at the situation realistically, it's very difficult to overtake on this track. But we will do everything we can and see what result that brings. Starting from sixth place doesn't make things easier, so the race will be tough. But I hope we can come up with something in terms of strategy and see how it all unfolds for the competitors."