Lewis Hamilton extinguished the hopes of a surprise Mercedes victory at the Japanese Grand Prix with an honest assessment of a difficult qualifying session for the Silver Arrows.
The seven-time world champion will start Sunday's race sixth on the grid, two places ahead of team-mate George Russell. Both of them were a second off the pace of the top three, all of whom were separated by less than six-hundredths of a second.
Both of them were out-qualified by Esteban Ocon, while the Frenchman's Alpine team-mate Fernando Alonso also went quicker than Russell. Hamilton hopes to get the better of them both in the race, but admitted that qualifying proved just how far away his team still is from Ferrari and Red Bull.
