Lewis Hamilton believes he could've taken P1 in sprint qualifying, despite ending the day down in seventh.

The Brit was served a bad slice of luck as a yellow flag caused hesitation heading into Turn 12, causing him to lose a chunk of time.

Hamilton eventually finished sprint qualification more than half-a-second behind pole-sitter Max Verstappen.

On what he believes could've been a P1 outing, Hamilton told Sky Sports:"I Just got unlucky with the yellow flag.

"It is what it is. I was four tenths up. The good thing is that the team has made a step with the car."

"The upgrade has clearly worked and I'm really grateful to everyone back at the factory for all the hard work over this period of time because it's been a tough slog for everyone to get the upgrades and make sure that they're working."

He added: "It's not the end of the day, tomorrow we've got another chance.

"We did a great job in between (sessions) to make changes to the car.

"It's always a bit of a gamble because you don't know whether or not it's going to work, the changes that you make.

"But you hope they do what you aim to do with them. As soon as I got out in the car, it was like night and day different. So it was great work from the guys in the garage."