Hamilton: “This pole was important for me”

Lewis Hamilton got his weekend off to a good start at the Spanish GP as he won his second pole of the season after that obtained in Australia (the 74th of his career). If the pilot Mercedes leads the Championship after his unexpected victory in Azerbaijan, the reigning world champion was eager to prove himself faster than the Ferrari on a regular basis.

“We had a pole on the clock. I don't think I had a great qualifying after that and this pole was important for me because it's usually one of my strong points, recognized the Mercedes driver. It’s all the more satisfying as we worked a lot to achieve this performance. I'm sure that part of the team was on edge, without really understanding what was happening. We were constantly learning but quite quickly. This double in qualifying is a real reward. »

If Lewis Hamilton set the new lap record by beating his pole from last year by around three seconds on the Catalunya circuit, he also had difficulty using the super soft tires which complicated the preparation of the drivers this weekend.

“These tires appear to have the narrowest operating window, explained the Briton. They seem harder than last year, whether we have more or less rubber. We do everything we can to heat them up during our preparation tour, but we still can't reach the right window of use. The tires are just too hard this season. This is why everyone is in trouble. I don't understand why they worked in Australia and not since, but it seemed to be going better for us today. I said to Valtteri (Bottas) that we were going to have to drive with cold tires in Monaco because it won't be easy to get them up to temperature. »

Lewis Hamilton will in any case have a great opportunity to score a 64th victory in F1 after having already won twice in Montmelo and increasing his lead in the Championship against Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) which is four points behind.