Hamilton expecting challenge from team-mate Rosberg in qualifying; Nico pleased with his race pace relative to Ferraris & Lewis
Tuesday 12 May 2015 14:01, UK
Lewis Hamilton believes he still has work to do to improve his Mercedes ahead of qualifying despite picking up where he left off in the flyaway rounds by setting the pace on F1’s return to action in Spain.
Hamilton, chasing a fourth win in five races at the start of his title defence, was outpaced by team-mate Nico Rosberg in the first session at Barcelona but set an impressive pace in the quicker afternoon running to head Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel by four tenths of a second.
Describing his first day back in the W06 since his victory in Bahrain three weeks ago as “fairly decent”, Hamilton nonetheless said that the blustery conditions around the sun-drenched Circuit de Catalunya meant it was difficult to settle on a set-up for the race weekend.
Asked if he was happy with the balance of the car, the world champion replied: “At the moment I’m not. I don’t really know why, it just feels very inconsistent throughout the lap.
“The wind is up and down so sometimes you’re getting a gust and sometimes you’re not getting a gust. Sometimes it’s understeer, sometimes it’s oversteer. Sometimes it’s fine and perfect and then the next lap it’s different. So that makes it very difficult with the set-up.”
While stressing he hadn’t yet had chance to study the pace of rivals Ferrari after another encouraging P2 on the softer tyre for the Scuderia, Hamilton is expecting a challenge in qualifying from the other Silver Arrow, Rosberg.
“I think he’s going to be quick, so I’ll try and be quicker,” Hamilton said bluntly.
Qualifying has certainly proved to Hamilton’s domain so far this season with the Briton enjoying a 100% pole record which has left him eyeing a fifth consecutive pole for the first time in F1 this weekend.
Rosberg, who became the first team-mate to defeat Hamilton across a season over a single lap in 2014 but has trailed the sister Mercedes by an average of 0.4s on Saturdays so far this, wound up seven tenths back on his team-mate in P2 on Friday – although struggled with gearbox glitches during the session.
But although admitting he needed to improve his single-lap speed, Rosberg was encouraged by his pace over the longer runs relative to the Ferraris and Hamilton.
“It’s just some small problems, we need to fine-tune some of those things. We were trying some new settings on the downshifts and that meant when I was pulling for the downshifts there was a delay, it didn’t go in straight away,” the German driver explained.
“That was just a bit awkward so we came back on those. All in all it was a good day, I have to say for the race especially. It was looking pretty good, especially compared to Ferrari which is important and compared to Lewis it was close. On one lap I still have some work to do.”
Rosberg said he was overheating his tyres on his out lap, which compromised his subsequent timed effort.
“It’s always a compromise between long run and short run, set-up wise and everything. Especially in these conditions, it’s very hot out there so very tough on the tyres on a long run. But for sure I need to work on my one lap pace for tomorrow,” he said.
“Mainly it was that I worked the tyres too hard on the out lap, so starting the flying lap they were just too hot.”
Rosberg already trails Hamilton by 27 points in the championship and has only once beaten Hamilton in a straight fight on race day since last summer.
