Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are both expecting tough races for different reasons from their respective grid slots in Valencia.
Both McLaren drivers expecting challenging races
Lewis Hamilton is bracing himself for a "tough" race from the front row of the Valencia grid on Sunday due to the fact he reckons McLaren are behind some of their main rivals on race pace.
The 2008 World Champion had admitted on Friday evening that for once this year McLaren had struggled to find a good balance with their MP4-27 on the opening day of a Grand Prix weekend after both he and Jenson Button finished down in the middle of the timesheets.
But, maintaining one of the few constants of this most unpredictable of seasons, Hamilton again came to the fore in Qualifying and, after running a used set of tyres to set his opening Q3 time, the Canadian GP winner made a big step forward next time round on fresh rubber and demoted the Williams of Pastor Maldonado into third place in the closing seconds to join dominant pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel on the front row.
But after qualifying 0.324s adrift of his closest World Championship rival, Hamilton confessed he was surprised to be quite so high up on the grid and wary about predicting how McLaren might fare over the longer runs.
"To be honest I expected to be a lot further back. We have struggled all weekend just with set-up and going from P3 to Qualifying we had to make some guesses to what kind of set-up we wanted to change and it seemed to work okay. I'm really, really surprised," he said.
"The guys obviously did a great job to, as always, get me a good gap and whilst the car still felt pretty good I think the gap is still quite big here. So it's going to be a tough race here tomorrow as always."
With track temperatures forecast to increase on Sunday, Hamilton is expecting the threat posed by Lotus's renowned race pace - Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen will start fourth and fifth respectively - could prove the main threat for victory.
"Generally you look at the grid, you know that as it's so hot, the Lotuses look massively competitive," he added. "I think they're going to be the ones to watch out for tomorrow. I'm sure the Ferraris will be very quick on their long runs as well tomorrow.
"So who knows what's going to happen tomorrow, we've just got to make sure we look after our tyres in these tricky conditions."
Speaking to
Sky Sports News later in the afternoon, Hamilton also suggested that Vettel was also likely to have plenty of speed in hand too.
"I don't see him struggling too much tomorrow," he said. "He's got a new upgrade package, he's got four tenths in his pocket just from one run, so that means he's got even more in the bag because if he'd have done two runs he would have gained more on the second one.
"So they're going to be very competitive tomorrow and we've got to focus on our job and what will be will be."
Hamilton's McLaren team-mate Jenson Button is also expecting a challenging 57 laps on Sunday but for largely different reasons after what had appeared to be a step forward from his recent woes in Practice ultimately gave way to ninth on the grid when it mattered most in Q3.
The 32-year-old had actually outpaced the sister MP4-27 on their respective first runs in the final stage but then tumbled down the order to the fifth row when he experienced a return of front wheel locking on new tyres.
"I don't think we had that many problems yesterday - the problems [that we had] we solved for this morning anyway and the car was very quick," Button explained.
"All the way through Qualifying the pace was very good; even in Q3 with an old set of tyres I was still only two tenths off of Nico [Rosberg], who was on new tyres. And then we put on a new set at the end, came out of the pits and turned into turn one and I had no front grip.
"I don't know why that is, but something I've definitely got to find out about because I don't think the circuit changed that much between runs."
And with overtaking notoriously tricky around the Valencia circuit, Button, already 43 points off the pace in the Drivers' Championship, added: "Tomorrow is going to be a difficult afternoon. It's not a place you can overtake, so it's going to be a tough day."
