Lewis Hamilton says the performance of his Mercedes Formula 1 car “plateaued” during a “difficult” qualifying session for t🌳he Hungarian Grand Prix.

Hamilton⭕ had topped both of the dry practice﷽ sessions - including final practice on Saturday morning - at the Hungaroring but was unable to challenge Red Bull driver Max Verstappen for pole position in Q3.

The Briton ended u🐈p 0.197s adrift of Verstappen’s pole effort and🔜 was also outpaced by Mercedes teammate and chief title rival Valtteri Bottas, who missed out on his fifth pole of the season by just 0.018s.

“For me it a difficult qualifying session,” Hami🎀lton admitted.

“Practice was going quite well, we knew Red Bull✨ was quick, they’re always quick here.

“I think when we got into qualifying, the car wasn’t the same as it was in FP3 and it was just as a bit of a struggle from t🐽he begi♏nning and it just kind of plateaued from there and didn’t really get any better.

“We will look into it, but🐽 nonetheless we’re still in the fight, and hopefully for the race we’ll have better race pace than qualifying.

“It kind of got away from me a little bit on💟ce we got into qualifying but still we are in a good position to fight for the win so we’ll just be pushing hard tomorrow.”

Despite lining up third on the grid at a track that is notoriously difficult to overtake at, Hamilton remains o♊ptimistic about Mercedes’ chances for rac꧒e day.

"We’re in a good position in terms of workin▨g as a team,” Hamilton said.

“We’re in a fortunate position potentially if we can ho😼ld on to Max to be able to work together to give him a 🎀bit of a run for his money.

“It’s a little bit harder if you’re on your own at the front as y🦩ou can come under attack from undercuts a bit.

“It’s a long run to T1, hopefully a nice b꧑𒊎attle there, then after that it’s down to team tactics.”