Hamilton blames "piss poor" lap for missing out on Imola F1 pole

Lewis Hamilton has described his final qualifying effort as "piss poor" after he was beaten by teammate Valtteri Bottas to pole position for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Hamilton headed the timesheets after the opening runs of Q3 but he was unable to match his teammate come the final laps, missing out on pole by just 0.097s.

Reflecting on missing out on pole position at Imola, Hamilton was not happy with his final Q3 lap.

"Valtteri did a great job and it was a pretty piss poor lap from myself," Hamilton said. "These things happen, you can't always get it perfect.”

Imola has received plaudits from all of the drivers, including Hamilton, but the reigning champion expects overtaking opportunities to be few and far between in Sunday’s race.

"The speed that we’re doing from T2 onwards is really intense, the lap, just non-stop, medium, high-speed, the grip is very, very high, so naturally, the faster you’re going the harder it is to be inch-perfect,” Hamilton added.

"Valtteri did a great job today, it’s not going to be a great race circuit that’s for sure, I’ll be really surprised if it’s a great race to watch tomorrow as once you get into Turn 2 you can’t follow. I hope I’m wrong.

"I mean Qualifying is perhaps a little bit like Monaco in that sense, I think the strategy as well is going to be interesting tomorrow, but there’s usually only a couple of options. It won’t be as good as last race in terms of opportunities to overtake, places you can follow, but as I said maybe we’ll be surprised.”