Lewis Hamilton believes he’s “cracked something” when it comes to his F1 qualifying pace after a breakthrough at the Spanish Grand Prix.

The weekend in Barcelona was the just the second time this year that Hamilton was ahead of George Russell.

Hamilton converted third on the grid into his first podium of the year as Mercedes continued on their upward trajectory.

Still, Hamilton is 8-2 down in the qualifying head-to-head against Russell.

Speaking to select media including Crash.net in Austria, Hamilton revealed a “huge amount of analysis” has been done to explain his Saturday struggles and he believes it’s simply down to the tyres.

“There’s a huge amount of analysis,” he said. “I have requested a lot of information from the team on how we can improve, where we are lacking. It is simply the tyres and so. Just continuing to improve on our processes from session to session, particularly once we get to qualifying things do change a little bit.

“Car is obviously lighter, DRS is used a lot more. Time will tell. I think we’ve cracked something. Now it’s trying to build on it.”

Hamilton also thinks the tricky handling of the Mercedes W15 has exacerbated his woes in qualifying.

The seven-time world champion described this year’s Mercedes as “on a knife edge”.

“The car aerodynamically is on a knife edge,” he added. “It’s not as easy to balance with the mechanical side. The aero balance from high to low speed getting that configuration is difficult.

“Tyre temperature and how you do your out laps is key. Ferraris in Montreal didn’t get out of Q2 for example – that can only be tyre temperature but they’ve got a good car, they won the race before that.

“It just shows it’s not easy to have the tyres working, over work the tyres, they’re definitely more sensitive than in any other season that I remember being.”

Hamilton sits eighth in this year’s F1 drivers’ championship, 11 points behind Russell.