LEWIS GETS IT SPOT ON
Klopp handling heat in pressure cooker
LEWIS HAMILTON’S Mercedes pulled off a tactical masterstroke yesterday to win the Spanish Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari beat Mercedes to the first pit stop, preventing Hamilton, left, stealing a march with fresh tyres. Mercedes switched tactics and put Hamilton on a long middle stint on the slower medium tyre, the idea being to attack Vettel at the end when Hamilton would be on the faster soft tyres and Vettel on mediums.
Hamilton said: “Fantastic job, guys. What can I say? Strategy was spot on.” JURGEN KLOPP says his Liverpool players proved they can cope with the pressure of their Champions League bid.
The team’s destiny is in their own hands after yesterday’s 4-0 win at West Ham, meaning a victory over relegated Middlesbrough on Sunday will seal a coveted fourth-place finish. Should Arsenal slip up against Sunderland tomorrow night, Liverpool will make it before the final day.
Boss Klopp said: “Part of our life is to handle pressure, to ignore the bad part of pressure and to use the good part. We drew in the last game, we didn’t score with a penalty and maybe people say then, ‘They can’t deal with pressure’.
“But I thought we saw a convincing performance.
“The first sentence the players said in the dressing room was, ‘One more time. One more game’. We will stay focused 100 per cent, we know about the difficulty of the next game, nobody will underestimate it one per cent. Middlesbrough have had a hard season. I’m pretty sure they’ll want to enjoy football at Anfield, they’ll want to try anything and that makes life difficult for us.”