Sky Sports pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz has revealed that Lewis Hamilton is eager for the media to 'ask questions' as to why Red Bull have, in the Mercedes driver's opinion, 'lost their DRS advantage' in recent weeks.
Hamilton stunned Max Verstappen with a sensational flying lap at the end of Q3 to snatch pole by just three thousandths of a second.
Many were caught off-guard by the Mercedes performance, particularly following a torrid set of practice sessions on Friday.
Yet Hamilton believes that Red Bull have slowed down in recent weeks, especially when looking at their DRS advantage. According to Kravitz, however, Hamilton might not be accurate in his claims.
He told Sky Sports: “I know Lewis Hamilton is starting to encourage us in the media to ask questions as to why Red Bull, in his view, why Red Bull aren’t as quick as they used to be. And in his view why Red Bull aren’t getting the same advantage from the DRS that they have all season
“I’m not sure that’s ultimately true. But Lewis certainly wants to put that out there and get the media to investigate that.”
“I’m sure Max will go to bed thinking ‘you know what I’ll let him at the first corner. I will let Lewis have the first corner.
“But can he do that? Can Max let Lewis have the first corner off the start? Lewis? Can he let Lewis have the first corner off the start or does he have to go for it?
“Max’s start being good, not bad, they’ve been okay. Alright, he lost out to Lando at Silverstone, they’ve been alright, but they haven’t been stellar. But what does he do tomorrow? I can’t wait to see what is going on.”
What Hamilton said
"Honestly, I think they've slowed down quite a bit from the beginning of the year. I mean, just like other DRS they don't have the DRS advantage all the sudden than they used to have. Where did that go?
"So yeah, but I mean they've just had an upgrade. So with all due respect to them, for them to not have extracted that in qualifying is interesting, but I think in the race, they're still the quickest and I think it'll be very hard to beat them tomorrow.
"But yeah, we are just as surprised as everybody else. But definitely interesting to see some, you know, see some of the deficits and how it's changed from race to race and how we've all closed up."