F1 News
Date:
27/July/2013
Lewis Hamilton surprised himself by claiming a third pole
position in a row, and the seventh for Mercedes this season, during qualifying
in Hungary.
The 2008 World Champion overcame the team’s disadvantage of
missing the recent Silverstone test to claim the first pole with the revised
specification Pirelli tyres, thus continuing the strong one-lap form of the
‘Silver Arrows’.
The Englishman, 28, beat reigning title holder and pole
favourite Sebastian Vettel by just 0.038s.
“I was really surprised when I came across the line and they
said I got pole,” said Hamilton. “I was expecting Sebastian to get it because
he had shown some serious pace before. And it didn’t even feel that great a lap,
so that’s why I was quite surprised. Maybe he made a mistake or something…”
But Vettel insisted everything had gone broadly to plan.
“There wasn’t much missing so I think Lewis did a good job,”
said the Championship leader. “At the end of the day I was pretty happy with my
lap but it was just not quick enough.
“Obviously Mercedes have a very strong pace in qualifying. I
think Lewis did an exceptional job today if you look at the gap to Nico
[Rosberg, fourth], so you have to respect that.
“I would have loved to be a little bit faster and to be on
pole but still I think it puts us in a great place for tomorrow. I think we have
a good car and good pace for the race. I’m quite confident.”
Vettel was also aware of the bad luck suffered by Red Bull
team-mate Mark Webber, who was denied the chance to even set a lap time in the
final part of qualifying.
“Shame that in the other car Mark had an issue. He didn’t
have KERS and had a problem with the gearbox, had slow upshifts,” explained Vettel.
Meanwhile Hamilton, currently fourth in the Championship standings,
hasn’t finished higher than third in a race this year and expects to again struggle
with tyre wear on Sunday.
“I’m not really looking forward to it,” admitted Hamilton. “We’ve
got a good car so I think if we didn’t have the tyre issues we would be able to
compete. It sucks that I’m not able to race with these guys but we will do the
best we can.
“The tyre degradation is an issue [for Mercedes] and no
matter what rules change or whatever solutions we find, so far, generally it
seems very difficult for us to improve.
“But we’re just working away at it and hopefully we will get
there before the rules change again for next year, different tyres come in. Until
then it’s just trying to get as many points as we can and trying to hold on to
Sebastian for as long as I can.”
Grosjean faced an anxious wait after qualifying when his
Lotus failed a technical check.
However the Frenchman, who had not qualified higher than
fifth prior to Hungary, escaped punishment when Lotus were able to show that
damage to the floor of the car had caused it to fail a deflection test.
Hungary is the first event with the revised Pirelli tyres,
which feature last year’s construction with this year’s range of rubber
compounds.
Vettel will start the race with a 34 advantage over nearest
rival Fernando Alonso. The Ferrari driver qualified in fifth place, just ahead
of Grosjean’s team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.
No comments:
Post a Comment