Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari & Red Bull are in 'another league' after Bahrain GP qualifying

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton says that he is happy with achieving fifth place in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix and that the Red Bulls and Ferraris are in another league to his car as things stand at the start of the new Formula 1 season.

Charles Leclerc will start the first race of the new year from pole position at the Sakhir circuit, with reigning world champion Max Verstappen alongside him.

Their team-mates, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez, make up the second row, meanwhile, whilst Hamilton will park his Mercedes in P5 ahead of lights out tomorrow afternoon in the middle eastern country.

Indeed, Mercedes have had a few struggles over the course of testing and this was perhaps about the best they could have hoped for, with Hamilton admitting the top two teams are ‘in another league’ in terms of performance right now:

“I’m genuinely really happy with today,” he said to Sky.

“Given where we’ve been the last few weeks, the struggles that we’ve had, the problems that we’ve had with the car, it’s been a bit of a nightmare to drive but we’ve just kept our heads down, kept working and so I’m proud of everyone for just staying positive.

“Those guys ahead of us are just in another league so I’m genuinely happy with where we are. It’s not the front row but we’ll make improvements and we’ll see what we can do.

“Those guys are going to be going away so we’re not in a fight with those [tomorrow.] My battle is with the guys behind but I’ll try and be as fast as I can and get ahead but their performance is quite ahead of ours.”

After years of supremacy, it’s certainly odd to see Mercedes off of the pace so considerably, with Hamilton’s team-mate George Russell only able to qualify in ninth after a mistake on his final flying