Hamilton questions Red Bull advantage: "Where did it go?"

Lewis Hamilton says Red Bull's advantage over the rest of the F1field has narrowed in recent races. The Briton beat Max Verstappento pole position for Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix by just 0.003seconds, representing the first time he will line up first on an F1grid since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. While Red Bull havewon all ten races so far in 2023, Hamilton suggested that thedrinks-backed squad do not have as much of an advantage as they hadearlier in the year, with other teams having delivered upgrades totheir 2023 mounts. Red Bull have introduced an update of their ownfor this weekend, prompting Hamilton to ponder how they failed tosecure pole position. "Honestly, I think [Red Bull] have sloweddown quite a bit from the beginning of the year," Hamilton told SkyF1 . "They've still got the DRS, [but] they don't have the DRSadvantage all of a sudden that they used to have. Where did thatgo? "But they've just had an upgrade, so we expected them to havetaken another step. We heard it was around two-tenths or somethinglike that, so for them to not have been able to extract that inQualifying is interesting." Hamilton: Red Bull still favouritesHowever, despite their failure to take pole position, the Britoncautioned that Verstappen and Red Bull would still be favourites towin Sunday's 70-lap race. Hamilton also reserved praise for hisformer team McLaren, who have followed up their strong showing atthe British Grand Prix with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri liningup third and fourth on Sunday's grid. "I think in the race [RedBull are] still the quickest and it will be very hard to beatthem," said Hamilton. "We're just as surprised as everybody else,but definitely interesting to see some of the deficits and how it'schanged from race to race and how we've all closed up, and superhappy to see McLaren in there."