MotoGP News
Date:
28/July/2013
Lewis Hamilton claimed his first F1 victory for Mercedes in
Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix, but was ‘baffled’ by the dominant performance.
The 2008 Wold Champion, a winner of 21 races for McLaren,
had openly doubted that he could match the race pace of the Red Bull and Lotus
drivers - despite qualifying on pole position.
Hamilton expected to suffer greater tyre wear than his
rivals - a recurring problem for Mercedes this year - and had less knowledge of
the revised Pirellis making their debut this weekend, since Mercedes were
banned from attending the recent Silverstone test.
Yet the Englishman held his pole into turn one of the 70-lap
race, lost his advantage only briefly during the pit stops and went on to win
by over ten seconds from Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen.
“It’s an incredible feeling,” said Hamilton. “This is probably one of the most important
grand prix wins of my career. To move to a new team and to win for
Mercedes-Benz is just a real privilege.
“The experiences I had at McLaren were some of my greatest
but I think this is one of the highlights of my career. Moving to a new team
and a team that was struggling massively last year and to finally get a win with
them after ten races is a great feeling.”
Hamilton added: “I really wasn’t expecting it and I talked
it down a lot yesterday because I really thought we were going to fall behind
in the race.
“Today was one of the hottest races I can remember and, for
a team that really struggles with tyre degradation, today was a walk in the
park.
“I’m really baffled... I used all the technique I could
possibly use to look after the tyres which I’m sure everyone is doing, but it
worked today. I really, really hope that when we go to the next race we’re able
to do the same.”
The stand-out moments of Hamilton’s race were two impressive
passes around the outside of Mark Webber, through Turn 2.
“I think you could tell I was hungry for it today. I was
just going all-out. I needed to get past those people and usually I get stuck
in traffic. Today I wasn’t having it. I was going for every move I had.”
Hamilton remains fourth in the World Championship, 48 points
behind Red Bull’s reigning triple title winner Sebastian Vettel, who completed
Sunday’s podium in third.
“Of course, when you have a win like this, you get excited
and think anything is possible, but it’s still too early to say whether or not
we can challenge for the title,” said Hamilton.
“I know the guys are working hard so that we can close the
gap, but we’ve got a lot of tough races coming up. I just hope that that’s not
the last time my tyres work for me.”
Hungary was the tenth of this year’s 19 rounds.
With Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso finishing a disappointing
fifth, Raikkonen has regained second in the Championship. However Vettel’s title
advantage now stands at an increased 38 points.
The summer break lasts until the Belgian Grand Prix at
Spa-Francorchamps from August 23-25.
No comments:
Post a Comment