Lewis Hamilton says he is overwhelmed to have taken pole position for the German Grand Prix given his unhappy build-up to qualifying.

The Brit secured his second pole of the season for Mercedes despite difficulties in finding an optimum setup during practice, when he complained of oversteering. He expressed his astonishment in emerging quickest and praised his team for making necessary changes.

“It is overwhelming because I have been struggling since the first practice session,” he said. “It got even worse this morning and we were about eight-tenths off. But we worked hard to analyze everything, made lots of changes and hoped it worked. Fortunately, the car was beneath me and I could put in the times I did.”

Hamilton also expressed his surprise at teammate Nico Rosberg failing to make it through to Q3 after Mercedes miscalculated his last timed run in the session.

“It was a big surprise for all of us as Nico has been extremely quick all weekend, so we anticipated he would outqualify me today. He was only two-tenths off my pace, and obviously the track did ramp up, so that was a surprise and caught us out a little bit.”