Lewis Hamilton insists that he remains upbeat about Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix despite missing out on pole position to Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg.
Hamilton is valued at 1.80 to win the Canadian GP having been beaten by just 0.079 seconds during qualifying on Saturday – the first time Hamilton has been out-qualified by a team-mate in Montreal.
The Brit looked to be the favourite to claim pole after Friday’s practise sessions at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve ut he failed to pull it out of the bag in qualifying.
Hamilton said: “It doesn’t hurt. The race might [if I don’t win].
“Perhaps why I’m able to be upbeat is I had good pace and I just didn’t exploit it at the end.”
The former McLaren man believes that failing to secure pole will be less of a problem than it was during the last event in Monaco a fortnight ago when he was unable to manoeuvre past Rosberg on a tight and narrow street circuit.
He added: “It’s a better mindset than I had in Monaco because there you can’t really overtake whereas here we have a two or three-stop strategy and always something happens here, safety cars and all those kinds of things.
“I’m just praying we have a good race and a chance to battle.”
The Mercedes duo have been fighting it out for top spot all season with Rosberg ending a run of four successive wins for Hamilton in Monte Carlo last time out.
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