George Russell thinks tyre overheating led to his half-second deficit to Dutch Grand Prix polesitter Lando Norris after being on the pace throughout Q1 and Q2.
Russell and Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton are looking to build on winning three of the last four races, but as the F1 season resumed in Zandvoort the pair qualified only fourth and 12th respectively.
While Hamilton went out in Q2 after struggling with a knife-edge car balance, Russell still felt he had a shot at pole after keeping up with the McLaren and Red Bull cars in Q1 and Q2.
But as the competition turned up the wick, Russell improved by only three tenths in Q3, which saw his gap to polesitter Norris balloon to over half a second.
"In Q2 my lap felt half-decent and I was the same pace as McLaren, so I went into Q3 thinking I had a shot at pole," Russell said afterwards. "And then the pace just didn't really come."
The Briton was convinced the pace was still in the car, but pointed to his tyres overheating through the final part of his last hotlap as the main factor behind his modest improvement in the final top 10 shootout.
"I don't think any of it is in the car, to be honest," the 26-year-old explained. "It's all down to the tyres. I was on a really strong lap, I was matching Lando, I think I was two and a half tenths up on myself.
"The tyres overheated and I just lost more performance than I expected in the last half of the lap. So I'm not too concerned. I think P4 is a strong place to start and I think we'll be closer to it.
"You want to start the lap with your tyres as cold as possible, but if you go one degree below the limit, you'll probably lose half a second. If you're one degree over the limit, you lose tenths. So, you're kind of balancing this sweet spot, it's like you're edging closer to the edge of a cliff.
"You go one step too far and you're off. And that's the challenge for everyone."
From the second row of the grid, Russell still believes he can mix and mingle with the two McLarens and Red Bull's Max Verstappen who are starting ahead.
"I expect a good fight with McLarens," he said. "It's fair to say they've still been the quickest in the last couple of races. So realistically we're maybe half a tenth or a tenth behind McLaren and Red Bull.
"But if you get the strategy right and make a good start that can all change very quickly."
Starting in traffic outside the top 10 on the twisty Zandvoort loop, Hamilton was less optimistic about his chances to move up the order.
"That's kind of the weekend done and we can move on to next week," he shrugged.
"It just went downhill like a domino effect from the [impeding] moment with Checo [Perez]. And then the balance just got more and more snappy, more and more oversteery.
"It was terrible. It's definitely very, very frustrating, naturally, but it is what it is."
