Lewis Hamilton: “Vettel’s gone, he’s on his way…”

McLaren and Lewis Hamilton have a great record in Montreal, but today the former World Champion couldn’t better fifth place in qualifying.

An improvement by Ferrari and lack of straightline speed – due Lewis said to a wrong decision over seventh gear – contributed to the Englishman’s disappointment. It was clear that he was trying to put on a positive public face.

“I feel OK, I feel happy within myself,” Hamilton insisted. “I don’t think I’ve ever driven the car so hard in my life, really. I was on such a ragged edge, I even touched the wall at one stage, I literally gave everything I could.

“We were also trying to use the tow of another car, because we were so slow on the straight – we had the wrong seventh gear in. So we were 10 kms or even more – 12 or 13 kms – slow on the straight, so we were losing a couple of tenths just on the straight. But I pushed as hard as I could. It seems the other guys have made a step forward, so back to the drawing board.”

Hamilton gave an enigmatic response when asked if he was hoping for better race form.

“I really, really hope so. We had a little bit of a bad news earlier on about something on the car. That will undoubtedly hamper our race pace.”

Lewis said he had no preference for a wet or dry race: “I don’t mind. I’d love a dry race, I think it would be great for all the fans. However it would be cool if it started dry and it rained half way through or something like that, and spiced it up a bit.

“I just want to finish tomorrow. Vettel’s gone, he’s on his way. It’s going to be very, very hard for us to catch him at this race. But I’m still hopeful. I don’t know when we’ve got anything coming, but I really, really hope that sometime soon we’ll have some positive steps on the car.”