The British star driver took a huge step towards his fourth world crown after clocking a cracking 1:30.076 as Sebastian Vettel, his title rival from Ferrari, failed to register a lap time due to engine trouble at the Sepang International Circuit yesterday.
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Hamilton was only fifth quickest in final practice but he set the pace in the first qualifying session, was fourth in the second, and then reset the boundaries at the start of the final session (Q3).
“Before Qualifying I was thinking about going back onto the new one as Valtteri seemed very happy on it and I didn’t want to carry a penalty – you want every little millisecond that you can get”.
The first blow went to Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes as he put in an impressive 1.30.076, over two tenths quicker than Raikkonen in 2nd, who could only manage a 1.30.308.
“I don’t really know what happened to Sebastian but he would have been up here with us”.
Formula One champions Mercedes have a “fundamental issue” to resolve with their car after a painful practice at the Malaysian Grand Prix on Friday. Both the drivers displaced Bottas from the top spot and will start from the front row of the grid on Sunday.
“It’s obviously too late, but I will know it for the future”.
During the Singapore Grand Prix earlier in the month, Bottas was matching Hamilton’s times but admitted that he “definitely was lacking pace in the wet” and faded “after a couple of laps” in each stint.
The German outfit installed new aerodynamic components on its car in Malaysia, with changes centered around the W08’s nose and the bodywork ahead of its sidepods.
Overnight analysis of the power unit on Vettel’s car has pinpointed the problem to a broken manifold that fed air from the compressor to the internal combustion unit.
” I can’t give you a number, I don’t have an expectation, but anything can happen.”
“It’s hard to sell this kind of event and to get bums on the seat. and it’s not worth the investment at the moment”.
Vettel added: “We had the issue this morning and we decided to change the engine”.
Stoffel Vandoorne in a McLaren, Nico Huelkenberg in a Renault, Sergio Perez in a Force India, and Fernando Alonso in a Mercedes completed the top 10. Is something like that also possible today with these cars on a track like this?
At the time of the switch Vettel said he had moved to the finger hole clutch arrangement (below) because it said it gave him a better feel as he moved away at the lights.
“It’s important for everyone to stand up for what they believe in”, he said.
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“The longer I put off leaving the sport, the later my – how do I say it? I was hopeful they would be quicker today but without a doubt tomorrow they will be on our tail”.
