Lewis Hamilton believes he has done well to finish second at the qualifiers – Formula 1 news
Lewis Hamilton admitted that he was not confident of a strong qualifying at Valencia.
The Brit revealed that he expected a position “further back” than his second place finish. Hamilton won the Canadian Grand Prix and will be gunning to become the first driver to become a repeat winner in the 2012 season.
There have been seven races completed in the season and Formula 1 has already seen seven different winners. It has been a world record but it seems that it is close to see an end to this freakish record as Sebastian Vettel and Hamilton will fight it out
at the front of the grid. Both have already won Grands Prix in the season.
Hamilton almost got the pole position but Vettel drove imperiously to take the lead from Hamilton. The German finished 0.3 seconds ahead of the Brit.
“To be honest I expected to be a lot further back,” Hamilton said. “We've struggled all weekend, just with set-up and going in from P3 to qualifying we had to kind of make some guesses as to what kind of set-up we wanted to change and it seemed to work OK.
I was really, really surprised. The guys obviously did a great job as always to get me a good gap and - whilst the car still felt pretty good - I think the gap is still quite big here so it's going to be a tough race tomorrow as always.”
Hamilton explained that he was not confident enough ahead of the qualifiers because of the unpredictable nature of the season. He added that the hot temperature made the Lotus cars very strong and tipped them to be a strong contingent on the race day. He
thought that the Ferrari’s have a good chance tomorrow as well because of their straights pace.
He also said that McLaren plans to save their tyres as much as they can as tricky conditions on the track will play a big role.
Hamilton is leading in the drivers’ standings followed by Fernando Alonso who is only 2 points behind him and Vettel at third who is only 3 points behind. A win will give him some room to feel safe in the lead.
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