Hamilton got “absolutely everything” from Mercedes F1 car in qualifying

Lewis Hamilton conceded second was the best he could do in qualifying for Formula 1’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, saying he got “absolutely everything” out of his Mercedes.

The reigning world champion was unable to stop Max Verstappen from taking a commanding first pole position of the 2021 season as he salvaged second place on the grid, 0.388s down on the Red Bull driver.

Hamilton felt there was nothing else he could have done to beat Verstappen to pole in Bahrain but was left upbeat by the progress Mercedes has been able to make since its troubles in pre-season testing.

“Congratulations to Max, he did such a great job - so fast on that last lap,” said Hamilton.

“I absolutely gave it everything I had but unfortunately it wasn’t good enough. There’s always more, but that was the best I could do, that’s for sure. I got absolutely everything I could from the car.

“We did a really good job from testing to come here. The lads back at the factory have really done such an amazing job. And our aero analyst, Kim, she’s been giving such great information to be able to prove and get the car to where we needed to be to be closer to the Red Bulls.

“I think to be that close, considering in testing we thought we were further behind, [was good].”

Hamilton revealed he was expecting the deficit to Red Bull to be around double the amount of the near-four-tenth gap in qualifying following the team’s struggles in testing.

“It’s definitely closer than we expected,” he explained. “I think this is a really good step forward for us coming into this weekend.

“We thought it would be double the gap that you see today and so that’s down to some really fantastic work from the men and woman back at the factory. And the people here, like Ashley on my car for example, who is doing a fantastic job. Collectively, we are just pulling together.

"It’s hard to do a huge amount, there’s been no development,” he added. “It’s been about fine-tuning the car and trying to understand the envelope we have. It’s different to last year’s with these changes.

“We’re down in certain places and it’s going to take some time to catch those up but it might be specific for here and maybe not elsewhere.”

But the seven-time world champion is unsure how much of a fight he will be able to put up against Verstappen in the race, predicting that Red Bull has “at least two tenths in hand.”

“I think they’ve got the pace and with the gap they had today, usually they carry that into the race,” he explained. “They are very strong in the race conditions.

“I’d like to think that we can close that up a bit but I think they have still got at least two tenths in hand.”