Hamilton unhappy with jumping ahead in Q3: 'Now I have dirt on my tyres'

Aiming to avoid traffic on his flying lap in Q3, Lewis Hamilton ripped past a line of his colleagues on track in a less than courteous manner to make sure no one got in his way. This, however, resulted in dirt on the tyres and a ruined lap, the Briton now admits.

"Absolutely, in hindsight yes," was Hamiton's answer to the question of whether the forcing during Q3 had a negative impact on his lap time. The driver acknowledged this during the post-qualifying press conference.

Hamilton continued: " I knew that everyone was just going so slow and I was worried about not having the tyres up to temperature but I went on all the dirty lines, so I was just picking up all the dirt on the tyres."

It wasn't just the dirt on the tyres, but the bad exit from the last corner that left a mark on the lap time, Hamilton believes: "Then I had a poor exit out of the last corner so already by Turn 1 I was a tenth down and already by Turn 3 I was two tenths down, so no hope in that respect and then naturally tried to over-drive to gather that pace, that time lost, back and it didn’t work."