The 23-year-old Englishman, who had qualified third on the grid after blaming himself for a wrong selection of tyres in Saturday’s shootout, said Sunday that, after examining all the data, he believed he was right.
And he added to that by saying he believed he was in with a decent chance of ending a run of Ferrari supremacy since he won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
He said: “Coming into Q3 I had to make a decision and the team rely on me to make that decision.
“At the end of the day, I’m the one who’s out there. It is only me who really knows what’s going on, and I think we actually did make the right decision - that was the best tyre for us.
“At the time I thought this wasn’t the tyre I should have used but I’ve just been looking at the data and it was the right decision.
“In Q2, it was clear the option tyre wasn’t good for me. And my engineer just told me my decision was right.”
Hamilton said his frustration at missing out on pole position was because he is desperate to get back to winning ways, having seen Ferrari win the last three races.
“For sure, we’re third and it’s better than we’ve had for the last few races, so it’s not all doom and gloom,” he said.
However, on the back of a hard chase of Ferrari in the Spanish Grand Prix, Hamilton is optimistic that McLaren remain a serious threat.
“We just need to be patient. We’ve obviously got a lot more improvements coming over the next few months and the team are pushing very hard.”
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