Hamilton took fourth place on the grid behind Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari and the Red Bull pair of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez at Paul Ricard, but ended🥀 up 0.893s off Leclerc’s pole time.

The seven-time world champion out qualified fellow Brits Lando Norris and Merc♋edes teammate George Russell, who was over three tenths adrift of Hamilton’s effort in sixth. 

Speaking to Sky after qualifying꧙, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff praised the job done by Hamilton, describing his performance as “ꦆimmense”. 

“If Sainz [who drops to the back with a grid penalty] is there it’s P5 but still a great, gꦡreat job,” Wolff said. “He’s probably extracted more than the car has at the moment.” 

Mercedes were tipped to potentially challenge for their first victory of the 2🌊022 season at Paul Ricar🀅d due to the circuit’s characteristics and smooth surface. 

But it quickly became apparent that Mercedes were still lagging beh🐼ind their rivals in terms of one lap pace throughout practice, despite bringing further updates to their W13. 

Mercedes looked like they 🐲would end up over a second off the pace of Ferrari until Hamilton strapped on a set of fresh tyres and impro🥃ved his time on his final Q3 run. 

“I thi💫nk we knew that once we got the new tyres on and we are driving the car in anger that we would be there in third or fourth, like we have been all season,” said Wolff. 

“But it’s just not good enough.

Wolff added: “You can see that when you are on a little bit of a back foot, your expectations are on a certain level for the𝓀 race weekend and it doesn’t come together, a ওkind of free styling starts. 

“With us it was mainly experimenting with rear wing levels and also tyre tempeꦬratures. B🍬ut in the end the overall package is just not quick enough and we can see that.” 

Hamilton ‘not sure why the gap has got bigger’ 

Despite his strong qualifying performance, Hamilton was puzzled as to how the gap to Merc𒈔edes’ rivals has appeared to increase at Paul Ricard. 

“Position wise yes I am really happy with my qualifying sessio👍n, if i am honest,” said𝄹 Hamilton. 

💙"My last lap was great. I fi🤪nished it and thought that was an awesome lap but I was still nine tenths off the guys ahead

“I am nꦉot sure why that gap has got bigger over these two races. They are in their own league in that respect p🅠erformance wise.”

Ham♒ilton added: “I came here thinking♉ last race we were three or four tenths off and I thought maybe this weekend we would maybe two or three tenths off and we have been a second [off] all weekend. 

“To get to nine tenths, I was happy with my lap and with my performance but they are in their own place. But we are still there so꧑ everyone behind 💧me is struggling too. So we just keep fighting.”