- Belgian GP - Qualifying
Hamilton hampered by brakes again in Q3
Lewis Hamilton says a glazed left brake made it impossible to do any better in qualifying after he was beaten to pole for the Belgian Grand Prix by team-mate Nico Rosberg.
Hamilton appeared to be struggling in Q3 and twice ran deep at La Source during timed laps, with a few more minor errors later in the lap meaning he could only get within 0.228 seconds of Rosberg's pole time. Brake issues saw him crash violently during qualifying in Germany and Hamilton admits he was concerned another session might be ruined early on.
"I'm just happy to be up here, I was nervous going into qualifying not knowing if the car would make it through," Hamilton said. "I had a glazed front right, or front left brake [it was a glazed left brake], so the car was pulling to the left, or to the right, and there was nothing I could do on the out laps to try and get rid of it so I was struggling under braking.
"I could bring the braking point a little bit further back but I was losing massive amounts, particularly through Turn 1. This is a circuit where you need to have confidence on the brakes and today -particularly in Q3 -I was just going straight on everywhere, that's because the left brake wasn't working for some reason - I don't know why it was glazing."
Hamilton is unsure whether the brakes will be an issue again during the race on Sunday.
"I don't really know. When it glazes its sometimes very hard to recover, especially in the wet. You have to put the brake balance forward but while you're trying to do that you're also overheating the rears so it's not that easy to always clear it. But over the evening they are able to scrub it and get rid of the glazing. I think it goes shiny and it loses that bite, hopefully we can lose that and it won't be such a problem in the dry tomorrow."
Hamilton took pole last year and he says that experience means he is putting a front row start in perspective.
"I'm not disappointed today, actually. If you look at previous years P2 was actually the best place to start here so I'm quite blessed that is actually the case. I started pole here last year and Sebastian flew past me down the top straight so I think it gives you the most opportunity from the start."
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