F1 | Hamilton extraordinary, helped by the Mercedes strategy

For a moment, pole position in the Shanghai sprint race seemed to end up in the hands of Lewis Hamilton. When the race direction gave Lando Norris back a previously deleted very fast time, the seven-time world champion understood that the day's result would be second place, which was nevertheless welcomed as an exceptional achievement.

As soon as he got out of the car Lewis hugged the mechanics like on the best days. “We're not fast on a dry track – he commented – for this reason when I saw the rain coming I said to myself that I would have an opportunity to do something better. And everything came to life…”.

At the start of the SQ3 Hamilton came out of the pits with intermediate tires (chosen by all ten drivers on the track) immediately complaining via radio about a great difficulty in getting the tires up to temperature. At that point the order came from the pits to return to the pit lane, a courageous choice since with only eight minutes available Lewis would then have had only two flying laps available. The call was correct, however, as it allowed Hamilton to use a second set of intermediate tires calibrated with higher pressure and to increase the load on the front wing.

“In SQ1 and SQ2 we had already seen that we were having difficulty getting the tires up to temperature with Lewis and especially with George – commented Toto Wolff – we made a mistake in the first two rounds and then we were right in SQ3”.

Back on track, Hamilton needed just one lap to warm up the tyres, then immediately completed a very fast lap (1'59″321) lowered slightly on the following lap to 1'59″201, times far from Lando's pole Norris but which confirmed Lewis seven tenths faster than Fernando Alonso, the first of the opponents behind him.
“This shows how important tire preparation is – underlined Wolff – driving is always important, and today Lewis was impeccable, but if we hadn't had the tires in the correct window it would have been very complicated”.

Mercedes straightened out a day that didn't seem to promise anything good, and this makes Hamilton very cautious ahead of tomorrow's race.
“If it takes place in wet track conditions then we can hope for something good – admitted Hamilton – if instead it is a dry race I will see the Red Bulls and Ferraris coming up behind me, at most we will be able to keep some of the others at bay…” .