“Still got a lot of performance to find”: Lewis Hamilton ‘happy’ with Mercedes progress but still looking to improve after qualifying P7 in Japan

Lewis Hamilton said that he was 'happy' with the progress made by Mercedes to close the deficit to Red Bull after qualifying P7 for Sunday's Japanese GP.

The Mercedes driver looked more comfortable in his W15 than he ever has in the 2024 season and found himself in contention for P3 but could not hook up his final lap in Q3.

Speaking with F1TV, the seven-time world champion pointed out that he wasn't happy with his P7 in the qualifying session and there was more performance to be extracted for the main race. He said:

“I’m naturally not happy with P7, of course. There were a couple of moments where we were higher up, I was definitely hoping to potentially get a little bit closer but it wasn’t meant to be. I’m happy with the way the weekend’s gone so far – in terms of the progress we’ve made in setup.

"Been much much happier to drive the car, we really made an improvement with the envelope we have. However, we had over a second deficit last year, it is closer, seven-tenths but we still got a lot of performance to find.”

Lewis Hamilton reflects optimism ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton stated that he could gotten another tenth from the car but believed that he gave everything in the qualifying session. Speaking with Sky Sports, the Brit said:

"If we had done something a little bit different maybe we could have been another tenth faster, maybe, but other than that that was everything.

"I think what it's giving us is I know exactly where the car is not strong enough, I can feel it in the car and I know now to tell them to 'push in this particular area'. But I'm hoping the race will be stronger tomorrow."

The Mercedes showed a good long-run pace in the FP3 session earlier on Saturday and will look to convert that on Sunday and fight for the podium positions behind Red Bull.

Lewis Hamilton starts in P7 while his teammate George Russell starts in P9 and they will hope to get as many points as possible to close the gap to their rivals ahead of them.

The German team are currently P4 in the constructor's championship at 26 points, a point ahead of Aston Martin and 29 points behind McLaren in P3.