A day that had opened under glowering clouds ended with Lewis Hamilton wearing a similarly gloomy demeanour. The mechanical failure he suffered in qualifying for the German Grand Prix may prove to be crucial in his world championship battle with Sebastian Vettel who, in contrast, shone when the bright sunshine returned on Saturday afternoon to claim pole at Hockenheim.

The failure was clearly unbearable for Hamilton and although it appeared the problem may have been induced through driver error, the team insisted he was not to blame. He nonetheless faces a formidable mental comeback for the race as well as the physical task of recovering from 14th on the grid. For Mercedes there must be concern they are suffering under pressure from Ferrari. They have had three costly mechanical issues this season, compounded by three strategic errors.

Hockenheim hiccup for Hamilton would puncture Mercedes optimism Read more

Qualifying was a disaster for Hamilton, whose car stuck in gear at the end of Q1 following a loss of hydraulic pressure, and he came to a halt on the track. An effort to push his car back to the pit lane was to no avail and the world champion was left clearly distraught, kneeling beside his stricken ride on an exit road.

“When I got out the car it was painful,” he said. “The first thought in my mind was to get the car back to the garage at all costs, so get out and push if you have to.”

The incident occurred when he went wide exiting turn one, where his car took a hammering over the kerbs, suggesting he had caused the damage. However, the team said the hydraulic failure caused the power steering to fail on his entrance to the corner, causing him to go so wide and jump so heavily.

Hamilton confirmed the issue had already occurred when he entered the corner going over the kerb the drivers would usually take. “When I got to the exit kerb the power steering failed and when that happens the steering load is extremely heavy and pulls to the left,” he said. “I couldn’t slow down, so took those bumps after, but they didn’t do anything to the car.”

The Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, confirmed “definitely it was not Lewis’s driving”. Hamilton’s desperation was evident as he leapt from his ailing car and started pushing. But it was not to be and he sunk to his knees as the enormity of the blow hit home. Marshals ushered his car away.

Hamilton took to Instagram to deliver a heartfelt riposte to the criticism he had received for supposedly causing the failure. “To those who take joy in seeing other people fail or suffer, I feel for you. Whatever is happening in your life to hold so much anger and hate, I pray that it passes and good things come to you,” he wrote, adding: “Nelson Mandela once said: We were not born with hate in our hearts, it’s something learnt over time. But if we can learn to hate then we can be taught to love for love is far easier and more natural to the human heart. God bless you. Now tomorrow, I can’t predict what’s to come. Good or bad I will die before I give in.”

There were shades here of Mika Häkkinen at Monza in 1999 when, defending his title, he spun off and was left kneeling next to his car in tears. Vettel leads Hamilton by eight points in the world championship and, as it was for the Finn, the title is one likely to be decided by the finest of margins.

Dropping points to the German here will be costly and Hockenheim will not prove nearly as accommodating as Silverstone, where Hamilton fought from the back to second.

“It is not that easy to overtake here, it is one of the hardest tracks,” he said. “It’s not like Silverstone. I definitely don’t expect to be where I was at the last race.”

Hamilton knew he was facing a hugely competitive Ferrari at Hockenheim and Vettel may well have been untouchable regardless of the British driver’s problem. His pole lap was imperious and clearly meant a lot to the German who grew up not 30 minutes from this corner of Baden-Württemberg.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel on his way to pole at Hockenheim. Photograph: Jens Meyer/AP

Vettel’s first run in Q3 secured provisional pole with a time of 1min 11.539sec, pipping Valtteri Bottas in the second Mercedes by just under two-tenths.

Bottas hit back strongly on the second hot run and delivered a fine lap to go quicker; but Vettel had more and nailed a superlative run on his last lap to take the pole by two-tenths from the Finn in second with a time of 1.11.212. Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen was in third place.

Vettel has won the German Grand Prix before but only at the Nürburgring, and he would dearly love to convert pole into a victory at what is truly his home race. “Today is definitely one of the best moments,” he said. “I have a mixed relationship with this track, we have been close in the past but it didn’t come together. To get the lap together here it means a lot in front of so many German tifosi.”

He has every chance to please them again while Hamilton, who opened the weekend with the celebratory announcement of his new contract with Mercedes, has a difficult afternoon ahead. He might be buoyed to know Häkkinen went on to take the championship in 1999, a season that also went to the wire.