Hamilton predicting a close fight with Ferrari

  • Published on 31 Aug 2018 19:24
  • comments 0
  • By: Fergal Walsh

Lewis Hamilton believes that there are just small gaps between Mercedes and Ferrari after Friday at Monza, adding that he and his team need to work through the night for qualifying on Saturday.

In the first free practice, the British driver set the 11th fastest time as the rain fell heavily. However, in FP2 he managed to set the third best time of the grid and he followed the pace of the two Ferrari drivers.

Furthermore, the current championship leader had a great feeling with the car and aims do his best to take the pole position on Saturday, predicting that there will be a close battle between Mercedes and Ferrari.

"We woke up to torrential rain this morning, which meant it was a less busy first session than normal,” said Hamilton. “We did a few laps but after that it was like having a day in the office when you don’t have too much work to do – I was even snoozing in the car at one point!

“But we did plenty of laps this afternoon in the dry and we could see that, like in Spa, we had a small gap to Ferrari on both the short and the long runs. My laps felt pretty good, but Ferrari were a little bit quicker today. We’re all working flat out right now in every part of the team, and we have work to do tonight as well – but there are some areas where we can see deficits, so I hope we can make a little step for qualifying.

“It has been a big battle for a number of races now, and they have had a small advantage since the middle of the summer, but we are pushing as hard as we can to overcome that. Although we are on Ferrari’s home turf, we have some great support out there and it’s always a boost to see that in the grandstands. It will be a very close fight tomorrow and, like every race weekend, we will be giving it everything we’ve got."

After the race in Spa, Lewis Hamilton leads the championship by 17 points over Sebastian Vettel, with the pair fighting each other to claim their fifth world driver's title.

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  • Team Mercedes
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