Rosberg once led this championship by a margin of 43, but with the momentum stacked in Hamilton’s favour, that will seem like an age ago to the German now.
Advertisement
Verstappen, the 18-year-old Red Bull driver who earlier this year became the sport’s youngest ever victor, courted strong criticism from both Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel for his aggressive defending in the Spa-Francorchamps race. Incredible drivers. I never in a million years thought my name would be mentioned in the same sentence as theirs. “Growing up, Ayrton Senna was the guy I wanted to be like, but Fangio is up there and is really the OG (urban slang for Original Gangster) above him”.
Following Saturday’s qualifying session Jenson Button revealed he will watch the sport unfold from the sidelines next season and the 2009 world champion will start the beginning of what could ultimately be his farewell tour from a lowly 15th. “I did a good job, up to now, but I wasn’t quick enough”.
That means the pole has been more important in Italy recently than Monaco, where the top qualifier has won only 11 of the last 17 years.
Hamilton, the victor of the last two Italian GPs and three overall, says he feels “generally relaxed” now he has served his expected engine penalties for the season, but is not “ignoring the fact that it’s a massive challenge to dial the auto in and extract everything from myself and the guys in the garage”.
Hamilton set the first in the first part of Q3 as he was three tenths of a second ahead of Rosberg.
“Overtaking is not easy here so pole position is definitely a good place to start”. I just had a small lock-up into Turn 1 and ultimately for the race tomorrow, you want everything to be ideal. “Now I can hopefully focus on getting my head down and getting back to the way I was driving before the summer break”.
“I feel quite comfortable that this team are quite capable of turning the fate of the “scuderia” around”.
“He has grabbed the opportunity with both hands”. “He is 18 years old, and what the frickin’ heck were any of us doing at 18?” Only two other drivers – Michael Schumacher and Alain Prost – have ever won 50 grands prix. The pressure on him is something that most people will not comprehend. He is young and he is learning.
And with no Italian drivers now on the F1 grid, he has been adopted by the country in recent years as one of their own come race weekend.
Advertisement
Hamilton said he had no personal issues with the Dutchman, whose father Jos was also a fierce competitor in Formula One, but had seen some videos of Spa.
