

It was difficult to get the tyres to 'switch on' and give us the grip we needed. I'm fortunate to be one place higher owing to Michael's penalty, but we struggled a little today, particularly with the very low-speed stuff. "And there are two great drivers ahead of me who'll make it even tougher for me tomorrow.

"I've had a good feeling all weekend, but his afternoon was massively tough: one of my toughest qualifying sessions for some time, in fact," Hamilton said. Hamilton was nearly 0.3s off pole in fourth place but will start third after Schumacher takes a grid penalty, and he said he'd been surprised by how tough the session had been for him. Michael Schumacher was fastest in a qualifying session which saw the top three drivers covered by less than 0.15s. Lewis Hamilton is hoping to get a good start in order to challenge for victory after what he described as a "massively tough" qualifying session in Monaco.
