Hamilton bemoans "poor" and "messy" qualifying for missing out on 100th F1 pole

Lewis Hamilton described his Portuguese Grand Prix qualifying as "poor" and "messy" as he missed out on the opportunity to score his 100th F1 pole position.

Hamilton entered the Saturday session at Portimão hoping to become the first driver in F1 history to score a century of poles but was denied by just 0.007secs to Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas.

Despite setting what was the fastest qualifying time overall with a lap of one minute 17.968secs in Q2, Hamilton failed to find any improvement in the top-10 shoot-out as Bottas' lap of 1:18.348 proved enough.

"It was a difficult session for everyone," said Hamilton. "It's not that easy here, particularly as it's windy, it's quite a slippery surface, so quite challenging for everyone.

"Quite a messy session from me. Q1 wasn't good, Q2 I only had one good lap, and Q3 was pretty poor also."

Praising Bottas, and with the team securing its 71st front-row lock-out from 141 races in the current turbo-hybrid era, Hamilton added: "A great job by Valtteri and by our team.

"For us to be on the front row was definitely not expected this weekend so we have got to be happy with that.

"Max [Verstappen] obviously pulled something out at the end but I'm not sure where they were earlier on. Not the perfect lap but I gave it everything."

After pre-season testing, Mercedes appeared to have no answer for the pace of Red Bull but at only the third race of the year, the German manufacturer had the upper hand.

Verstappen starts third after missing out on pole due to the fastest time of Q3 being deleted for exceeding track limits at turn four.

With this in mind, Hamilton reiterated Mercedes cannot afford to fall behind in its development this season

"I don't think we can ever be satisfied," added Hamilton. "That is what we exist to do, to push forward but I'm definitely happy with the work we are doing and the steps we are taking."

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