Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
TAKE A BOW, LEWIS
HAMILTON BLITZES GRID AS HE HUNTS GB FOUR-TIMER
LEWIS HAMILTON delighted the Silverstone crowd after securing a hat-trick of pole positions at his home track.
The Mercedes driver was half a second quicker than Ferrari’s second-placed Kimi Raikkonen and his time of 1min 26.600sec was so outrageously quick there were gasps, before the crowd erupted.
Title rival and championship leader Sebastian Vettel was third, a massive 0.756secs adrift.
Hamilton has now equalled the record for poles at the British Grand Prix, with five, alongside Jim Clark.
“I always try to leave the best to last,” the Brit told retired champion Jenson Button. “I had to make sure I got that lap in. I couldn’t do it last weekend in Austria.”
Hamilton still faced a nervous wait after race stewards investigated an incident involving French driver Romain Grosjean, who complained he had been blocked earlier in the session. But
I feel amazing in front of a great crowd
like this
they swiftly decided to take no further action.
The Briton’s mastery of a damp but drying track lit up an overcast afternoon and the pole was the 67th of his career, sixth of the season, and gave him every chance of equalling Michael Schumacher’s record 68 before the August break.
The triple world champion has won the last three British Grands Prix and can today equal Clark’s feat of four home wins in a row, and five in total.
“I feel amazing in front of a great crowd like this. I hope you liked the lap,” Hamilton told the grandstands full of cheering fans. “I generally like it to be dry but I still like it when the conditions are tricky.”
Hamilton, 20 points behind Vettel in the drivers’ championship, has said he wants to use his home race to get his season back on track.
Hamilton has been left delighted about his Mercedes’ performance around the high-speed corners of Silverstone. He said the faster, more demanding 2017 cars meant that part of the middle left-hander of the Becketts complex that follows Copse Corner was flat-out when it never had been before.
“Maggotts and Becketts – that section is on fire,” said Hamilton. “Turn 10 is always flat, 11 has been flat for years, 12, from 2007 to now, you were letting off later and later and now you are on the gas into 12. Turn 13 [the final right-hander] is a fantastic corner because it is very bumpy, a lot of compression on the tyres and it is all about the exit.”
Hamilton’s Finnish team-mate Valtteri Bottas, winner in Austria, was fourth fastest but has a five-place penalty following a gearbox change. That promoted Red Bull’s Dutch teenager Max Verstappen, who has suffered five retirements in the last seven races, to the second row.
Beleaguered McLaren raised a cheer when Fernando Alonso made the most of improving conditions to set the fastest time in the first phase of qualifying, with Belgian teammate Stoffel Vandoorne qualifying ninth.
That was the first time he had outqualified Alonso – who has a 30-place grid penalty for engine component changes – and will move up a place thanks to Bottas’s drop.
Australian Daniel Ricciardo, winner in Azerbaijan, will join Alonso at the rear after a gearbox penalty was followed by the car halting on the track in the first phase and bringing out red flags.