Hamilton was nearly replaced by Ocon at Hockenheim

Lewis Hamilton has revealed that he came close to dropping out of qualifying for the German Grand Prix, with Esteban Ocon on standby to take his place due to illness.

Hamilton says he woke up on Saturday with a sore throat, and he certainly looked off-colour in FP3 as Ferrari took the lead.

However, the Scuderia completely fell apart in qualifying, with Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc both running into mechanical issues to start 20th and 10th respectively.

Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas could not bring the fight to Hamilton, who took pole by more than three tenths of a second, but he later revealed that he had almost not been there at all.

Hamilton 'good enough' to fight Leclerc without Ferrari meltdownRead more

The champion said: "I wasn’t feeling good this morning. I have a sore throat, so we prepped just in case I would not be able to do the session.

"We were prepared to put the second driver in the car in the worst-case scenario. I got through good."

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