Lewis Hamilton has revealed he had doubted whether he would take part in the German GP weekend after feeling unwell at Hockenheim.
Hamilton will start on pole position for Sunday's race after he and Mercedes cashed in on Ferrari's latest 2019 own goal, with the world champion impressive in the Scuderia-less Q3 to beat Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas by three tenths of a second.
But Hamilton says his Saturday might not have got that far with the 34-year-old not feeling 100 per cent fit.
"I was really not expecting to be able to fight for pole today," he told Sky Sports F1.
"I felt pretty bad this morning and there was a moment where we weren't even sure we would be doing the weekend. But I've never missed a race weekend in my life and that's something as competitors, you can't miss a single race.
"So I've just been resting in between - I haven't even been in most of the meetings, I've been sleeping and then I wake up, get dressed and get in the car.
"But the team have done such a great job in terms of the processes we went through and I was really happy with the car in the last lap."
Hamilton has an unbroken sequence of 239 race starts since joining the F1 grid in 2007 - the longest run in history - and leads this year's world championship by 39 points.
The 34-year-old said in the post-qualifying press conference he was battling a sore throat and "we were prepared to put the second driver in the car in the worst-case scenario", which is Esteban Ocon.
Could Hamilton have been on pole without Ferrari woes?
Despite enjoying his best-ever start to a season in terms of race wins and points, Hamilton has found poles relatively harder to come by and Saturday represented his fourth in 11 attempts this year - the same as Bottas.
Mercedes were presented with something of an 'open goal' after both Ferraris inexplicably fell by the wayside due to unreliability, with the Scuderia having topped all three practice sessions and then Q1.
Hamilton, however, reckons he would still been able to have a say in a final Q3 battle against Leclerc and Vettel. The Mercedes driver had outpaced Leclerc by a tenth in Q2 on the medium tyres which he will start Sunday's race on.
"I think it would have been close between us and the Ferraris," said Hamilton. "I'm not convinced entirely they would have been much quicker than us, if at all.
"Leclerc was doing some good times all weekend but it wasn't meant to be in the end."
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