The session began in continuing sweltering conditions with an air temperature of 36 degrees Celsius and the track at 44 degrees – utterly unexpected by tyre suppliers Pirelli and numerous teams.
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“It’s completely different to China”.
“That is the case here, they had the failures last year and then there was the failures this year, so they put the pressures up to 23 or 24 PSI or whatever it is, which is so high”. I might get past three cars tomorrow and my tyres might be gone.
In Saturday’s third and final practice session, he finished fifth but was clearly holding back on speed and his clear priority in the afternoon qualifying session will be to save tires.
Jenson Button will start in ninth while British rookie Jolyon Palmer qualified 14th albeit almost half-a-second slower and two places behind his Renault team-mate Kevin Magnussen. This has the corollary of reducing the number of laps the tyres can manage.
“It is shame we are so high on the pressures because we are in a position at the moment with the tyre where you can’t push the vehicle”.
“If you push on the out-lap they’re done by Turn 3 – blistering and overheating”. I don’t have to go insane at the start.
“We had calculated what the other cars could do so we believed that time was OK”.
“Hopefully with the new tyres for F1 next year it will not be the case because it is not a nice feeling at the moment”.
Rosberg, who will now be expected to convert his pole into a much-needed victory, will be joined on the front row by Belgian-born Max Verstappen in the Red Bull with Kimi Raikkonen third for Ferrari. “The tyres are going to be hard though”.
Max Verstappen believes he has chosen the best strategy for the Belgian Grand Prix, even though he is the only driver in the top five starting on super-soft tires.
“I do have a few options in Formula One, which is great for me to still feel wanted”, the 36-year-old Button said at the Belgian Grand Prix.
“We know already the best tyres, the medium and the soft, because the supersoft is bad, it lasted like three laps”.
With nothing to gain on the track, or times from rivals to chase down, Hamilton was free to focus on Sunday’s race.
“We are all struggling to look after our tyres so it is not going to be a cool easy breezy day where I’m just picking them off one by one”.
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“There are a lot of quick cars in a straight line and we have seen before Mercedes are not brilliant in traffic”. The key for me is making sure I come out of tomorrow having lost the fewest points possible – and that meant having as many fresh sets of tyres available as possible and making sure the auto was set up well.
