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Lewis Hamilton says ‘the fight is on’ as resurgence continues with best Ferrari qualifying
BARCELONA — Lewis Hamilton vowed “the fight is on” against Mercedes after continuing his recent resurgence with his best qualifying result yet for Ferrari.
Hamilton, 41, qualified second for Sunday’s Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, falling just 0.064 seconds shy of Mercedes’ George Russell for pole position in the final stage of qualifying on Saturday.
Second place marked Hamilton’s best qualifying result for a grand prix since joining Ferrari at the start of 2025, beating his pair of third-place starts from last year’s Mexico City Grand Prix and in Monaco two weeks ago.
To come so close to pole marked another step in Hamilton’s recent upswing in form. The seven-time world champion endured a difficult first year with Ferrari, going an entire season without a podium for the first time in his Formula 1 career.
Ferrari brought a number of upgrades to Barcelona in an effort to close the gap to Mercedes, which has won all six races so far this season.
“It’s helped us,” Hamilton said in the post-qualifying news conference. “The car felt great in qualifying. Obviously, they’re still so quick, the Mercedes (cars). So we still have work to do to fully close the gap or at least get ahead.
“But I’m really hoping that tomorrow… It’ll be nice for once to be able to hold on. But we’ll see.”
George Russell and Lewis Hamilton in parc ferme during qualifying in Barcelona. (Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)
One characteristic of Ferrari’s car that could help Hamilton at the start of Sunday’s race is its tendency to pull away from the line quickly.
The run from the grid to the first corner in Spain is one of the longest on the calendar, but Hamilton did note he is starting on the ‘dirty’ side of the grid where grip is reduced.
He also said it would be “challenging” to fight against Russell and championship leader Kimi Antonelli, who will start third in the sister Mercedes, without Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc to help at the front.
Leclerc crashed out in the final stage of qualifying, leaving him 10th on the grid. The Monegasque driver said he felt “very ashamed” of the error.
Hamilton’s most recent grand prix victory came at the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix when he was still racing for Mercedes, inheriting the win after Russell was disqualified. He holds the record for F1 wins with 105.
Asked by The Athletic if Sunday’s race marked his best chance yet to win for Ferrari, Hamilton said he was “going to give it a go” but thought Mercedes was “still ahead” for outright pace.
“This is the closest we’ve been pace-wise, I think, in qualifying,” Hamilton said. “I’m so, so grateful to the guys back on the team. I’ve seen how focused and how hard everyone’s working. Everyone’s just quiet and goes about their business and is just so passionate.
“I really want them to know how thankful I am, because it felt great out there to put a lap together and see that we’re that close.
“We’re still early in the season. So the fight is on.”
Could Hamilton have scored pole?
After crossing the line to finish his final qualifying lap, Hamilton told Ferrari on the radio he had run a bit deep into the first corner which could have cost him some time.
Hamilton explained in the news conference that he opted to run on slightly used tires for his initial flying lap in Q3 to find a reference, knowing his best chance would come at the very end of the session.
“When I went into Turn 1, I gunned it,” Hamilton said. “I probably went in too deep. I had massive understeer and went quite wide on the exit of (Turn) 1, which meant (Turn) 2 was slower than normal.”
The track temperature neared 50ºC in qualifying on Saturday. (Manaure Quintero / AFP via Getty Images)
He estimated it had cost “half a tenth to a tenth” of a second, but added that he wanted to review the data.
An extra challenge for Hamilton and the rest of the F1 field on Sunday will be the high levels of tire degradation at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The track temperature neared 50ºC (122ºF) in qualifying on Saturday, while the number of long corners make it very demanding on the tires, meaning the race is likely to feature multiple pit stops for the cars at the front.
“The deg was like double what we expected,” Hamilton said. “We’ve come into the weekend with an expectation of what the tire is going to be, and for us, we had twice the level of deg. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s improved going into tomorrow.”
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