ABU DHABI -- Lewis Hamilton suspects his failure to sign off the 2017 season with another pole position was down to tweaks made to his car during qualifying in Abu Dhabi.
Hamilton had been the quicker Mercedes in the three practice sessions leading into qualifying, but eventually fell 0.172s short of teammate Valtteri Bottas' benchmark time in Q3. Hamilton believes modifications he and the team made to his car after final practice, where he was comfortably quickest, hindered his chance of a 12th pole of the season.
"Valtteri did an exceptional job today and we deserved to have pole," he said of Mercedes' comfortable front-row lock-out. "Pracitce had gone good this morning and I was really comfortable with the car.
"The track gets cooler from the afternoon so you make some changes to counteract that and I may have gone too far, I obviously went too far with it, and I struggled with the balance.
"I was giving it everything but I was fighting the car the whole time, she wasn't too happy today but it is great to see Valtteri up there. Naturally we'll try to have a race tomorrow I just hope it isn't like a train tomorrow. I hope it is a battle tomorrow whether it is through degradation or pit stops or whatever. I'm looking forward to it."
Despite looking close to Mercedes in FP2, the only practice session held in representative conditions to qualifying or the race, Ferrari's challenge never materialised. Vettel was a distant 0.5s off Bottas' eventual lead time but Hamilton is expecting Ferrari to apply pressure on Sunday evening.
"It was like half a second [to Ferrari] so I wasn't expecting that. Generally when it gets cooler that bodes well for us. I think in the race trim they are usually quite good so I think tomorrow is coming to be close between all three of us."