Hamilton: "We had no traffic and that last lap was beautiful"

Lewis Hamilton claimed pole position for the Qatar Grand Prix, beating title rival Max Verstappen by almost half a second. After qualifying the Brit hailed "a beautiful lap" and revealed he wasn't 100% on Friday.

"Yesterday was a really difficult day for me actually. Thursday and Friday, I wasn't feeling well. And so really struggled through practice & really dig deep and I was here till midnight working with the engineers who also work so late, & found a lot of areas to improve," Hamilton told the TV broadcast after qualifying.

"I had a bit of stomach ache on Wednesday but slept really well last night. Being that its such a fast circuit. I don't think fro the little bit of experience we've had that its not the easiest track to follow and not massive difficult on graining. Could be a one or two," Hamilton concluded.