Hamilton’s feat
It’s 2023, but the clock for an afternoon has gone back a couple of years. Lewis Hamilton in pole position, Max Verstappen at his side on the front row, separated by three thousandths. Qualifying for the Hungarian GP put the two great rivals of this era in Formula 1 face to face and gave the British champion a small but very sweet revenge, who hadn’t won a start at the pole for a year and a half, since the Saudi Arabian GP in 2021. The Englishman indulged in the whim of breaking the string of five consecutive poles of his Dutch rival and his plan is to try to keep the Red Bull champion behind him even in the race.
Red Bull too strong
Hamilton himself, however, is aware of the evident technical superiority of the RB19capable of winning all the races so far and one step away from equaling the historic record of 11 consecutive victories at the start of the season signed by McLaren in 1988. The Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolffhowever, showed off realism at the press conference, recognizing how Verstappen’s vehicle is currently incomparable with the one available to his pilot.
“Tomorrow Lewis will give everything he has to fight Max Wolff said. but we have to be realistic: they are in another category“. However, Mercedes has confirmed that it is capable of incredible reversals, such as the one set up between free practice and qualifying: “Yesterday we raced on the medium tires and we struggled. Between Friday and Saturday we worked on the simulator to find the right balance on the softs -explained the Viennese manager – we always have to work on the setup to find the ideal one. You can also see on the Sprint Race weekends how much we struggle to find the right setup“.
Format to review
Finally, the number one of the Brackley team also commented on the new qualification format. Today was fun and spectacular, but some doubts remain about the conditions in which the teams are forced to work on Friday, with a potential negative impact on the spectators: “With this alternative tire allocation rule the show was good for the audience today – acknowledged Wolff – but much less on Friday. We will have to find a compromise for the future”.
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