QUALIFYING
“I KNEW THE FANS WANTED IT, EXPECTED IT, SO THE PRESSURE WAS HUGE”
YOU COULD TELL LEWIS HAMILTON’S RECORD-SETTING SIXTH British Grand Prix pole position meant a lot by the quiver in his voice after his titanic battle with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, one in which Hamilton turned a 0.057-second deficit after the first runs in the Q3 top-10 shootout into a 0.044s advantage.
“It was so close and I had to go over the limit to get that time out of the car, which is dangerous as you could easily have not pulled the lap together,” said Hamilton. “I knew that the fans were right there with me, every time I would go out I’d see them cheering so I knew they were wanting it, expecting it, hoping for it. So the pressure was huge.”
Vettel, who picked up a neck strain in the morning and skipped his qualifying simulation run in FP3 and admitted after qualifying that he hadn’t been certain he’d be able to run, failed to improve on his pacesetting first Q3 run.
His lap of 1m25.936s was followed up by one half-a-tenth slower, with his first sector the main culprit.
That meant Hamilton, even with a rear-end wobble coming through the penultimate corner that cost him perhaps half-a-tenth, did enough to grab a famous pole position on that attacking last attempt. Once again, the
Ferrari was stronger on the straights, with Mercedes quicker in the corners. So while Vettel gained three tenths on Hangar Straight,
Hamilton gained through Stowe,
Becketts and, in particular, Copse.
Kimi Raikkonen was a genuine pole position threat at a circuit where he outqualified Vettel in their previous three seasons as team-mates. But on his first run, he overdid it into the Brooklands left-hander and lost time, resulting in a more conservative run through that turn on his second attempt. He also pointed to the tiniest of lock-ups into Vale on his final run, but that seemed less costly and, given he set the fastest time of all in the first and third sectors, it was the middle that caused the deficit of 0.098s to pole position.
Valtteri Bottas struggled with the entry to the Vale/club left/right that ends the lap and reckoned he lost three tenths on his final attempt, leaving him a distant fourth. That still put him well ahead of the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo, with both drivers frustrated by the lack of Renault power in qualifying. The Australian’s deficit to Verstappen, 0.5s, was exaggerated by not being able to open the DRS on the Wellington Straight.