Hamilton warns against high expectations for qualifying changes: 'That never ends well'

With a month between the Suzuka weekend and the next race in Miami, following the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian GPs, teams and the federation have time to review how to make qualifying more flat-out.

For this weekend already, changes have been made to qualifying, with the maximum energy recharge cut from 9.0 MJ to 8.0 MJ to better balance deployment and driver performance.

The seven-time world champion doesn't believe that further changes would end up helping Ferrari get closer to pole positions. He said in Japan: "I'm not expecting much from it, but I hope they make some big changes."

Hamilton said after the session that he lost time due to the way the deployment changed following his snap, which cost him crucial lap time.

He continued: "Just on performance, we're hugely down to the Mercedes engine, and what that is, we don't know. Whether it's just that they have a bigger turbo or just more crank power or something else.

Hamilton also added why he doesn't expect much from it. "I just think there will be a lot of chefs in the kitchen. Normally that doesn't end up with a good result," he concluded.