Lewis Hamilton cautious ahead of the Turkish Grand Prix – Formula 1 news
Lewis Hamilton, McLaren’s ace driver, has decided to take the cautious approach ahead of the Istanbul Grand Prix and has played down his chances of making it two wins in two races as the European leg of the Formula 1 season begins.
The former youngest World Champion outpaced and outwitted Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel at China to win his first Grand Prix in almost eight months. Vettel ended second and Mark Webber, the other Red Bull driver, ended the race in third place. Hamilton said
that a repeat of the same performance should not be expected from him in Turkey in the coming weekend.
He reportedly said, "I don't like to expect too much because if it doesn't work out it's not a big come down, Even though we won the last race, we are still slightly behind the Red Bulls in terms of pure pace."
There has been a gap of three weeks between the Turkish Grand Prix and the one in China, and all teams have had ample time to work on the upgrades and modifications to the cars. McLaren is expected to have number of upgrades ready for the next race.
Lewis Hamilton believes that his new car, MP4-26, is one of the quickest on the circuit and the engineers have done a fantastic job in getting the modifications right. However, he admitted that his car is still a good half second behind in pace compared
to Red Bulls. The Brit went on to say that the new upgrades are exciting, but one should not expect those modifications to cut down the big gap in terms of speed between the two teams.
"I hope we can close the gap but you never know who might have closed the gap more," he said, Fingers crossed our upgrade is good enough. We'll see tomorrow, we have to assume that whatever we have brought they have the same or similar,” he added.
Hamilton went on to say that it is not just McLaren that has been working hard on getting to terms with the pace of Red Bull and getting the upgrades in place. He added that teams like Renault, Ferrari and Mercedes have also been working hard and rest assured
that they will also have something to say in Istanbul.
Lewis Hamilton, despite having the possibility of being outpaced by Red Bull, should be able to take solace from his performance in China, and look to make up in strategy what the team lacks in pace.
The Turkish Grand Prix holds bitter sweet memories for McLaren and Hamilton. Last season, even though Hamilton managed to win an eventful race, it was not without controversy. The Red Bull duo of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were adding to the race and
looked set to finish as top two. Vettel, in an effort to get past his team-mate, smashed into Webber’s car and as a result got knocked out of the race while Webber moved to third.
Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button took advantage and moved into first and second place respectively. There was an instruction issued to both drivers from the pit asking them to conserve fuel and slow down. As soon Hamilton slowed down, his team-mate Button,
went ahead. Hamilton fought hard and got his position back and won the race buut that sparked anger, confusion and misunderstandings between the two McLaren drivers.
That incident is well in the past, and would be furthest from Hamilton’s mind for sure. The objective is to try and keep pace with Red Bull and hope that they falter somewhere and allow McLaren to make headway.
Lewis Hamilton the McLaren driver has decided to take the cautious approach ahead of the Istanbul Grand Prix, and played down his chances of making it two wins in two races as the European leg of the Formula One season begins.
The former youngest world champion outpaced and outwitted Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel at China to win his first Grand Prix in almost 8 months. Vettel ended 2nd and Mark Webber the other Red Bull driver ended the race in 3rd place.
But Hamilton said that a repeat of the same performance should not be expected from him in Turkey in the coming weekend.
"I don't like to expect too much because if it doesn't work out it's not a big come down, Even though we won the last race, we are still slightly behind the Red Bulls in terms of pure pace."
There has been a gap of three weeks between the Turkish Grand Prix and the one in China, and all teams have had ample time to work on the upgrades and modifications in the cars. McLaren is expected to have number of upgrades ready for the next race.
Lewis Hamilton believes that his new car MP4-26 is one of the quickest on the circuit and the engineers have done a fantastic job in getting the modifications right. But he admitted that his car is still a good half second behind in pace compared to the
Red Bulls. The Brit went on to say that new upgrades are exciting, but one should not expect those modifications to cut down the big gap in terms of speed between the two teams.
"I hope we can close the gap but you never know who might have closed the gap more," he said, Fingers crossed our upgrade is good enough. We'll see tomorrow, we have to assume that whatever we have brought they have the same or similar”.
Hamilton went on to say that it is not just McLaren that has been working hard on getting to terms with the pace of Red Bull and getting the upgrades in place. He added that teams like Renault, Ferrari and Mercedes have also been working hard and rest assured
that they will also have something to say in Istanbul.
Lewis Hamilton despite having the possibility of being outpaced by Red Bull should be able to take solace from his performance in China, and look to make up in strategy what the team lacks in pace.
The Turkish Grand Prix holds bitter sweet memories for McLaren and Lewis Hamilton. Last season even though Hamilton managed to win an eventful race, it was not without controversy.
Red Bull duo of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were adding the race and looked set to finish as top two. Vettel in an effort to get past his team mate smashed into Webber’s car and as a result got knocked out of the race while Webber moved to third.
Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button took advantage and moved into first and second place respectively. There was an instruction issued to both drivers from the pit asking them to conserve fuel and slow down. As soon Hamilton slowed down his team mate Button
went ahead, Hamilton fought hard and got his position back and won the race. But that sparked anger, confusion and misunderstandings between the two McLaren drivers.
That incident is well in the past, and would be furthest from Hamilton’s mind for sure. The objective is to try and keep pace with Red Bull and hope that they falter somewhere and allow McLaren to make headway.
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