Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Hamilton expects close fight with Ferrari and Red Bull in Malaysia

Lewis Hamilton expects a close fight with Formula 1 rivals Ferrari and Red Bull in Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix despite comfortably taking pole position at Sepang.

The reigning world champion finished 0.414s clear of team-mate Nico Rosberg, with Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo around two tenths further back.

Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen locked out the third row, one tenth adrift of the Red Bulls, at a time of day when the conditions were around 10C cooler than on Friday when teams were doing their long-run evaluations.

"I think they [Red Bull and Ferrari] will be very quick, they have been quick all weekend," said Hamilton, who took only his second pole in six races.

"Providing the conditions are like this, the course is better, a lot smoother and seems to work better with the tyres than it has done in previous years.

"It'll be a close race because they had very good long runs but we're looking quite strong also so hopefully that is the case tomorrow."

Why Mercedes needs to watch its back in Malaysia

When Verstappen was asked if felt he could beat Mercedes in the race, having demonstrated strong long run pace on Friday, he said: "I don't know.

"The whole weekend has been quite positive, we made some changes after Singapore and it seems to work.

"The long run pace looked promising.

"I felt quite a good balance on the soft tyre, actually on all compounds it felt good in long runs but it just depends on the temperature on Sunday.

"The short run on Friday we needed to improve and we found a good set-up with that for today."

CONTRASTING DAYS FOR MERCEDES DRIVERS

Hamilton was pleased with his qualifying, but felt he could have gone quicker after aborting his second run in Q3.

"The car felt fantastic," he said. "I really enjoyed the lap [but] it could have been faster.

"I'm very happy and grateful for my lap but you always want to finish that last lap

"There's more time there."

Rosberg accepted Hamilton's lap was just too good but said it would have been closer had he been able to get on top of a persistent oversteer problem in the final corner.

"Lewis' lap was very quick so it was always going to be difficult," said Rosberg.

"I would have come close but unfortunately I made a mistake in the last corner.

"Something just wasn't going right in the last corner and I couldn't get the settings right.

"I've always got a big oversteer moment into there.

"But anyway, second place, I've got to live with that now.

"As we know from this year, second place doesn't mean that victory is not possible on Sunday, so I'm still very optimistic."

Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Lewis Hamilton on F1 pole position for Malaysian Grand Prix
Next article Jenson Button hits out at F1 traffic in Malaysian GP qualifying

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe