‘It was mega!’ – Hamilton explains his Q3 lap that put him on the front row in Barcelona

Lewis, what a lap! Talk us through that one from your side. It was mega! The first sector of the first lap was really good and it was looking like it was going to be something similar but then you see the red flag came in and when I went back out on the used tyre I was half a second off and I was like hey! Because the team asked me to just stay and just do one lap and I wanted to go out and get a benchmark. And then the last lap I went probably a little bit too deep into turn one but managed to pull it off. I honestly think if there was any time lost that was where it was but otherwise the rest of the lap was great. The car just was similar to Q1 Run 1 but even better. These tyres are so sensitive and what you do on the out lap is so critical to whether the tyres are overheated or they stay in the perfect window where there's grip. What's your thinking for tomorrow? A long hot race ahead of everyone but a great opportunity ahead as well. Yeah, well I feel fit so that's not going to be a problem. I think the challenge on the long run was the degradation was for us from our reading was like double what we anticipated coming into the weekend and whether or not that's the same tomorrow now there's more grip on the track but yeah degradation is going to be key and track position is important here as well. I think it's still because it's so hot following is very hard because you have less downforce your tyres are overheating and so just tyre management tomorrow is going to be key and striking the balance with the wing settings you have and all the setting you do but I have every confidence in the team.