F1 | Spanish GP | Lewis Hamilton credits ''overnight changes'' for his pole position
Lewis Hamilton after scoring the 200th pole position for Mercedes powered car and 92nd for himself explained that overnight changes to his car played a vital role in his position at Circuit de Barcelona
For Spanish GP, battle for pole position, it was once again a straight fight between the two Mercedes AMG F1 drivers and It was reigning champion Lewis Hamilton, who came out victorious by just 0.059s denying his teammate yet another pole position in scorching condition of Barcelona.
It is Lewis Hamilton’s 92nd career pole position and 150th front row start-most by any F1 driver up to date. His pace in Q1 and Q2 already proved that today, once again, man to beat was Lewis Hamilton and his first flying lap of 1:15.584s in Q3 was enough to seal him the pole position, as most of the top ten drivers failed to make a dent in their lap times during the second runs of Q3.
In post-race press release by Mercedes Amg F1, the reigning champion put emphasis on the overnight car setup changes made the possible for him.
“We changed a few things overnight, made a good step forward and I was pretty happy with my first laps in each Qualifying session,” Said six times world champion.
Furthermore, he explained that the putting the lap around wasn’t easy as the temperatures were high and it was quite windy which made the Qualifying hard.
“This is a great result for the team and I'm grateful for everyone continuing to push. It was very hot and quite gusty out there which made for a tricky session.”
Lewis Hamilton believes after first solid flying lap; he could have gone even quicker as he had more pace but couldn’t put the lap together.
“The first Q3 lap was really solid but there was still a bit of room for improvement. But my second lap wasn't particularly great and I just couldn't go quicker.”
In last two races the gap between him and his teammate Valterri Bottas hasn’t exceeded 0.063s Bottas is keeping him on his toes and helping him extract most out of the car.
“In the end, it was very close with Valtteri out there, he's keeping me on my toes and every millisecond counts.”
Lewis Hamilton who has won last three of the Spanish GP, after the race pace Red bull Max Verstappen had shown in last week’s race Lewis still fear the repeat of that and thinks they are still in the blind and not confident about what will happen in the race tomorrow and run down to turn 1 will be key to the end result of the race.
Tomorrow is going to be challenging, as the race scenario is completely different. Over a single lap, we seem to have the edge, but Red Bull's race pace looks strong and the run down to Turn 1 is very long, so I'm expecting a tough battle.
