A delighted George Russell qualified in second place for Sunday's Qatar Grand Prix following a late and confusing deletion of the best laps by rival McLaren drivers.
When the chequered flag waved to end Friday's qualifying session, defending champion Max Verstappen was fastest for Red Bull ahead of Lando Norris of McLaren with Mercedes' Russell third and Oscar Piastri fourth in the second McLaren.
The decisions to scrub out the fastest laps by the two McLarens were not communicated to the drivers or organisers before the top-three finishers began to gather for their post-session broadcast media interviews – at which point Norris withdrew, knowing he had exceeded track limits on his best lap.
That left Russell to declare he was delighted to finish third on the grid – not knowing that he was promoted to second.
"It was a really tricky day for everybody," he said.
"The new tarmac was really slippery and all the sand is blowing onto the track. We went out in qualifying and the lap times were just immense compared to the times we were doing this morning.
"That was good fun! And I'm really happy to be P3."
Exceeding expectations with best Team Quali performance of the year since Australia. 👏
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) October 6, 2023
Let’s make tomorrow count, too. 👊 pic.twitter.com/yy9Of2IyXr
Looking ahead to Sunday's race, for which Verstappen claimed pole position, he said: "Lando and the McLarens are really quick at the moment. We know Red Bull and Max are in a league of their own, but our fight is with Ferrari to secure P2 in the constructors' championship."
At one point, he turned to look for Norris. "Where is Lando?" he asked. "He seems to have disappeared!"
In a bizarre turn of events, Piastri was then interviewed although he was demoted from third position during the broadcast. He will start sixth while Norris fell to 10th.
Norris later said: "I just had a correction and oversteer and went off. The team have done a good job. I just messed it up. Not a good day for me."
Piastri said: "I'm not particularly happy with myself. Very, very scruffy on that last lap. Bit more on the table, but I'll take a top three."
'VERY, VERY STRANGE'
Hamilton said he felt that Norris deserved to have kept his place after taking issue with the severity of the penalties when drivers exceed the limits.
"I feel Lando should be up here really," he told reporters.
Hamilton, who was elevated to third long after the chaotic sequence of broadcast interviews, was also one of four drivers to be investigated for allegedly driving too slowly in Q1 along with Yuki Tsunoda, Liam Lawson and Piastri.
It was close out there @McLarenF1. Excited for the battles ahead on Sunday. ⚔ pic.twitter.com/X2VQeYHwTQ
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) October 6, 2023
Ferrari's Carlos Sainz was also called to see the stewards for baulking Verstappen in Q2 in an incident that resulted in the Dutchman claiming that he almost crashed.
Hamilton discussed his car's erratic performance.
"It's confusing because we were nearly out of Q1, which is incredibly frustrating in that moment, but then we get into Q2 and all of a sudden we're right up there.
"So it's very, very strange, but it's really great for the team for us to be up there and George did a great job today.
"So for us to be so close is pretty awesome. I mean, for me, it was a relatively average qualifying session – Q1 and Q3 particularly. I was able to put together the lap, but it came too early, in Q2, so I wish I had that for Q3."
He said he was not thinking about his personal battle with Red Bull's Sergio Perez for second place in the title race. He trails the Mexican by 33 points with six events remaining.
Perez struggled again to extract the potential from his car and was eliminated in Q2, taking 13th place on the grid.
"No," he said. "I'm not thinking about that. I want to win the race and I am trying to do that. It doesn't matter who I'm fighting against."