McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton ‘thrilled’ with 2nd place on the grid for Australian GP – Formula 1
The 2008 Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton has recently stated that he is ‘thrilled’ after securing the 2nd place during the qualifying session of the 2011 Australian Grand Prix.
“I'm absolutely thrilled to be up here today. The guys back at the factory have done an unbelievable job, really a massive step this weekend the car's feeling fantastic,” said Lewis.
He stated that his team’s new car was well off the pace of the RB7 of Red Bull Racing team according to the results of the final free practice session and the qualifying session of the Australian Grand Prix. However, the upgrades McLaren applied to their
car have proved to be a success for the team and even though they are not using the Kinetic Energy Recovery System on car for the Australian Grand Prix, the British driver was able to split the two Red Bull drivers.
His teammate Jenson Button on the other hand, scored the 4th position for the team and it seems that McLaren have jumped ahead of Ferrari, who were looking much better than them during the pre-season testing period.
Nevertheless, Hamilton’s fastest lap was over 7 tenths of a second slower than Sebastian Vettel’s pole position taking time of the session and as a result, the 2008 champion stated that the team still needs to do a lot of work on its new car.
“Of course we still have a lot of work to do but I think we've really got ourselves on the right track and a great foundation for us to build upon so I know the guys back at the factory will keep going but a big thank you to everyone at home; keep pushing,”
stated Lewis.
The season opening race of the 2011 Formula 1 season is definitely going to be an ‘eye opener’ for all of the teams and after the results of the Australian Grand Prix, the teams will get a clearer picture of where they stand at the moment as compared to
the rest of the teams on the grid.
Tags: