Lewis Hamilton found himself in the melee of drivers who failed to make it over the line in time to start his final qualifying effort in Monza. But in the end, that might not have been such a bad thing for the five-time champ, who set a tmie good enough for P2 on his first run – and, according to him, a good chance to finish one place higher on Sunday. Despite misjudging the delta time for attempting his final lap, Hamilton’s first effort in Q3 saw him qualify just 0.039s behind Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari in P2, with team mate Valtteri Bottas third and Sebastian Vettel fourth in the other Ferrari. And with analysis of Friday’s pace data showing Mercedes with a half a second advantage over Ferrari in race trim – and with memories of Hamilton beating Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari to the win from P2 on the grid 12 months ago still fresh in his mind – he appeared confident for the race despite the qualifying setback. READ MORE: Leclerc takes bizarre Monza pole as rivals misjudge timing

Bizarre end to Italy qualifying as time runs out

“I have to be grateful that I’m on the front row,” he said. “We get to have a fight with the Ferraris tomorrow which is nice; we split them, so as a team, it’s a really good position for us to be in. It definitely is a bit of an anti-climax that we couldn’t all go out and do that last final lap, that’s one of the most exciting ones.

It was pretty dangerous – I almost crashed a couple of times Lewis Hamilton