Lewis Hamilton was happy to refute any “myth” about Mercedes’ Formula 1 cars by out-qualifying team-mate Valtteri Bottas for Sunday’s French Grand Prix.
It was revealed that both Hamilton and Bottas had swapped chassis for this weekend, with both drivers rotating through the season as part of Mercedes’ plans.
Questions were raised when Bottas out-paced Hamilton in both of Friday’s practice sessions, and was the faster of the two once again in final practice on Saturday morning.
It led to suggestions that the chassis swap had been instrumental in the pair’s performances, with Bottas looking the quicker of the two heading into qualifying.
But Hamilton hit back on his final lap in Q3 to secure a spot on the front row behind pole-sitter Max Verstappen, pushing Bottas down to third.
Hamilton admitted he hadn’t felt at one with the car during the weekend, but felt pleased to put the theories over the chassis swap to bed.
“I’ve been generally unhappy in the car weekend,” Hamilton said.
“I saw you come up with some myth, and so I was happy to be able to prove it wrong – the quality of our engineers’ work, you know, all the cars are exactly the same.
“Congratulations to Max, he did a great job today. They’ve been incredibly quick. You see they’ve got a new engine this weekend, not a new spec or anything as far as I’m aware, but anyway, they’re quick down the straight.
“I think it was a lot of time on the straight today, so we’ve got a race on our hands, and we’re loving the battle. So we’re just going to keep pushing, keep fighting and giving it everything.”
Hamilton is hoping to overturn a four-point deficit to Verstappen in the drivers’ championship come Sunday’s race, with the Briton victorious in F1’s previous two visits to Paul Ricard.
While Hamilton was unsure how Mercedes would stack up against Red Bull on long-run pace, changes made to the set-up have left feeling more confident in the cars ability.
“In practice, it was a real struggle and our long run pace, I think [Red Bull] were a tenth or two quicker than us on a long run,” Hamilton said.
“But my car is in a much different place now. So I’m just going to stay hopeful, do everything that I can obviously. We’re in second, you’ve got a fighting chance at least down to Turn 1 and there’s going to be some interesting strategy probably tomorrow.
“I don’t know, maybe [there is] rain, so you get to see kind of potentially get to see the rainmeisters do their thing. I’m excited.”
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