Formula One: The Red Bulls are not “immortal” – Lewis Hamilton
McLaren driver, Lewis Hamilton insists that he can beat the Red Bulls at the Singapore Grand Prix at the Marina Bay this weekend, despite his disappointing pace at the first practice session this Friday.
Sebastian Vettel on the other hand, repeated his Hungaroring dominance in the Practice session in the second practice session before winning the Hungarian Grand Prix comfortably. Vettel was 6 tenths up on his teammate Webber and over a second faster than
the two McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. Hamilton however, revealed that the McLaren was trying to hold back on Friday in order to concentrate on the long run pace rather than low-fuel lap times.
“The track was very tricky today because there were wet patches in some areas, but it was quite a good session for us. We're reasonably close; we're competitive; there's more time for us to find tomorrow; so I'm optimistic,” he said.
Lewis claims that McLaren will be able to compete with the front running drivers in the future and the Red Bulls are definitely beatable at Singapore. The Red Bulls are very quick in the second and third sectors comparatively but this does not mean that
McLaren cannot win. The British driver is confident that his team will work hard and try to catch up with Red Bull.
McLaren’s team Principal Martin Whitmarsh agreed with Lewis Hamilton and he too believes that his team is in a good position for this Sunday’s race.
“While today's lap-times suggest that our competitors may have an advantage, there's still plenty of data to be combed through tonight. In particular, our long-run pace looks encouraging, so our aim for tomorrow is to ensure that our car's speed over
a single lap is optimised for what's likely to be a rather tricky qualifying session,”
said the team principal.
According to Whitmarsh, the initial analysis suggests that McLaren’s latest upgrades have worked successfully and the team will have to work on the car in even more detail in order to understand their overall pace ahead of tomorrow.
Whitmarsh spoke about the resurfaced areas of the track including the re-profiled Singapore Sling chicane. Hamilton thinks that the changes have actually made things worse for them.
“Finally, I think the changes made to the track have made it worse - and the chicane is now very tricky. You approach it at 170mph - and if something goes wrong, and you hit one of those kerbs, then you could have a nasty accident,” said the former
world champion.
All the drivers were having a hard time controlling the car on the kerbs at the chicane and Adrian Sutil got his Force India flying after misjudging his approach.
Both of the McLarens were in the top five at the second practice session on Friday and the team is not looking so bad after all. The new installation to the car seems to be working fine and it will be interesting to see how the McLaren performs at the Saturday
practice session before heading to the qualifying. Ferrari is doing a good job as well, as Fernando Alonso timed in 4th fastest behind Jenson Button in 3rd and ahead of Lewis Hamilton in 5th.
The Singapore Grand Prix is getting even more exciting and it will be a groundbreaking race in terms of the championship. Red Bull’s Mark Webber is currently leading the championship with 187 points, just 5 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton. Fernando Alonso
moved to 3rd place after his impressive win at the Italian Grand Prix just 21 points behind the leader followed by Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel with 165 and 163 points respectively.
This race might end one of these drivers’ championship journeys but it is not easy to predict anything yet. Rain is expected to hit the track on Sunday during the race to spice things up even more. If it rains, it will be the first floodlit wet race in the
history of the Formula One!
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