Lewis Hamilton believes he had been”very unlucky” not to pip Charles Leclerc to Italian GP pole – but says he is enjoying the”exciting” duel with Ferrari at Monza.
With the final laps of Q3 ruined by the farcical battle for a tow round F1’s quickest lap, the battle for rod was finally settled from the very first Q3 runs – which Leclerc won from Mercedes’ Hamilton with a mere 0.036s and Valtteri Bottas from 0.047s.
But Bottas and also Hamilton suspect rod might have been theirs had they never had to lift if KimI Raikkonen crashed in the Parabolica before them. Hamilton was supporting the Alfa Romeo when it snapped off.
“I was very unfortunate,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1. “I was behind Kimi for my first lap. I probably began the lap close so I was catching him. Of course with a car that is marginally slower you need to produce a larger gap for the tow.
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“I started catching him throughout the corners and that I was thinking’don’t catch him too far’ and I got into the last corner and he spun, and so I needed to lift. With that lift I would have lost a tenth and it might have bene the gap between pole and second.
Nevertheless, the championship leader explained:”But that’s exiting. I love that it is that close and it is not several tenths.”
Leclerc vs Hamilton compared
In side-by-side SkyPad analysis of Leclerc and Hamilton’s laps, Anthony Davidson shows how the Mercedes was fractionally before Ferrari starting the backstraight which heads into the Parabolica – and then was still level pegging leaving the final turn despite necessarily having to ease away for Raikkonen.
From the movie over, Sky F1’s Davidson says:”Raikkonen spins out in front and Lewis certainly has to back out of this ever so slightly.
“On the departure, even though a vehicle spinning in front of him clearly having to flip out, the excess speed the Mercedes inherently has under it when it goes via a high-speed corner is sufficient to maintain him pretty substantially level pegging with the Ferrari.
“Unfortunately for himonto this [pit] right, just at the end that is what decided ”
Meanwhile, Leclerc said he had not been pleased.
“Mercedes were quick, we were very quick also,” the Ferrari driver stated.
“My lap was not special. I was far too near Hulkenberg on the timed lap. In the corners I lost a lot, although the slipstream was obviously excellent. It wasn’t ideal, I was far too close”
Hamilton and Bottas begin between the two Ferraris on Sunday’s grid and the Englishman said:”I’m very happy we improved the automobile piece by bit over the weekend and managed to get quite near the Ferraris which is wonderful.”
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