Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton may have secured a hard-earned pole position during the Imola Qualifying. Eventually, the Briton is not taking it easy against the deadly Red Bull duo of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez before the race day.
After claiming his 99th Career F1 Pole, the defending F1 champion talks about his team’s strategy, prior to the big day at Imola.
“If we’re able to get off in order, then they obviously have a bit of a better set of cards in terms of strategy,” said Hamilton. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t pull out something unique and do something different.
“I’m not really sure what happened with Valtteri [Bottas, the 2020 Imola polesitter who qualified eighth after topping both Friday practise sessions and Q1].
Hamilton further urged his team to set their focus on Sunday while bringing every trick in the bag to go past the Red Bull driver duo.
“It’s very hard to overtake here so obviously we probably won’t have the support of him early on, but nevertheless maybe he will make it through.
“But otherwise we’ve just got to focus on our job and try and do absolutely everything and more to keep these lads behind.”
With Bottas finishing on P8 during the qualifying, Hamilton may find it hard to tackle the two-way challenge posed by team Red bull. Yet, given his stature, caliber, and skills, no challenge comes big enough for the seven-times F1 world champion.
Lewis Hamilton capitalized on mistakes by Red Bull drivers during the Qualifying
Credit : Getty Images
It didn’t come easy to Hamilton during the qualifying session. He failed to improve on his final lap timings even while driving with the medium tires. Nevertheless, given some mistakes by Red Bull driver Sergio Perez during the closing moments, the Briton eventually claimed the pole position.
On being asked about the difference between his two Q3 laps – the second of which came moderately slower than the 1m14.411s one, Hamilton admitted to not being up to the mark in the final stages.
“I didn’t honestly know whether or not we could do it. Hamilton said “The first lap, for example, of Q3, started I think a tenth up out of Turns 1 and 2 and I knew that I was onto a good lap, but the second sector lost a little bit a Turn 12 [Acque Minerali].
“The second time around, unfortunately, came out of Turn 2 and 3 [Tamburello] a tenth and a half down, I think it was, or a tenth down, and by the time I got to Turn 9 [Piretella], I was a tenth and a half down, but managed to regain that through the middle and the last sector”, He further added.
“So, having those two together I think would have been the perfect-perfect lap – but I’m honestly so happy with that [first] lap. “The first lap really is obviously where it counted. So, grateful for it.”
As Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix flags off within the next few hours, both Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes have to come up with something special to combat the Red Bull challenge.
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