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Lewis Hamilton Spa Q&A
Written by: Adam Cooper   http://www.speedtv.com
09/06/2008
Spa, Belgium
 
Mission accomplished for Hamilton in qualifying. (LAT photo) ยป More Photos

Lewis Hamilton put himself in the best possible position to defend his World Championship lead by taking pole at Spa, just ahead of title rival Felipe Massa. Qualifying effectively decided who took the win in Valencia – will it do so again here? The first corner here is very tight, so things could get pretty exciting. As ever at Spa there’s also the threat of rain in the air. Don’t forget that Hamilton has already won in the rain at both Monaco and Silverstone this year, so he’s looking for a hat trick of wet weather successes. After qualifying Lewis shared his thoughts with the media.

Q: I guess the smile on your face says it all with the pleasure and the perfection of your pole lap.

“Today has been a great day for me. I was so happy with all three laps I did throughout qualifying. It is always satisfying when you can go out, do one lap and come back in and watch everyone else going around trying to get their laps done. Today the team made no mistakes and I made no mistakes. I had four great laps but especially at the end. In my first Q3 lap I had a bit of a lock up at turn one and I had the same for my second Q3 lap but somehow managed to keep it together but the rest of the lap I was very happy with.”

Q: And not an easy weekend so far with changing conditions. In Q2 we saw you running with the harder of the Bridgestone tires compared to your teammate, so a lot of indecision going into qualifying.

“Not on our side. I decided to stay with the harder tire for Q2 and surprisingly the option tire, the softer tire, is quite a bit better. I think everyone else was on the option tire but I was on the prime and I was very, very comfortable with the pace that I had, considering I was on that tire.”

Q: You mentioned the lock up. That is not the first time we have seen you locking up. Is that something we should be talking about?

“Not really. It is one of the characteristics of my car and that’s why we are quick, maybe – I don’t know. But even with those lock-ups we still managed to pull it out of the bag. I feel great. The team and the atmosphere in the team feels great, back at the factory
but also here and really the solid job that they are doing is coming out in the results that we have, so I am absolutely thrilled to be here.”

Q: This could not be more different coming here from Valencia. And your physical condition comparing two weeks ago to how you look to be driving now.

“Absolutely, I think coming from Valencia we knew we had some work to do. I have come here feeling better than ever and more and more comfortable in the car. The preparation has been fantastic. As you can see, I am stoked and I am struggling not to smile. Tomorrow is going to be a challenging day for all of us but with the pace and the package we have we are going to be hard to beat.”

Q: To what extent do you feel you’ve been on top all weekend? Has everything been going perfectly? I know we saw you having a change of brake set-up yesterday.

“Yeah, otherwise it’s been going pretty smoothly. We’ve not had any problems, the car’s reliable. I think yesterday we just made sensible choices and good steps forward with the limiting running that we had and also this morning. But I felt pretty sure, coming here compared to last year, that the car that I have, the setup that I’ve worked on with my engineers would be suitable for here, so I’ve felt pretty much on it all weekend.”

Q: How much is a driver unsettled by the weather conditions here, by the showers coming and going, and the damp circuit?

“It’s no problem for me. There’s times when you have to go out and do what you do. For example, if we had the conditions that we had in P3 in qualifying then we would have been forced to go out and then obviously you are taking a certain risk. But there was no need this morning, it was undecided whether you went out on wet tires or on slicks – there was a bit of a mix – and I just didn’t want to go out and waste my time. This is going to be a very hard circuit in the wet if it does rain and without traction control, it would be a real challenge, especially with all the slippery white lines but I guess we will just have to do the best job that we can if it does.”

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