Hamilton says Red Bull beatable

Hamilton will start tomorrow's race from third on the grid alongside team-mate Jenson Button, and the Briton claimed that Fernando Alonso's pole and McLaren's lockout of the second grid both prove that Red Bull's advantage is slipping.

"They are beatable," he said in the post-qualifying press conference. "Fernando has proven that today through qualifying.

"Clearly they don't have the two second lead they had at one stage this year. Our team is doing a solid job and long run pace is better than qualifying pace, so tomorrow we will have a good race."

Hamilton said that he was reasonably satisfied with his own performance in qualifying, although he felt he could have gotten more out of the car on his final run.

"The session was okay, " he said. "On the first lap I was much too close to Jenson so on the last sector I was losing a bit of downforce, but nevertheless it was quite a good lap. In the last lap, I didn't improve - it wasn't a good lap."