After claiming a 70th career pole position for this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton is predicting a difficult battle heading into Sunday's race at Sepang.
Despite struggling for pace all weekend, Hamilton claimed pole from Kimi Raikkonen by only 0.045 seconds while Sebastian Vettel failed to complete a lap following a turbo issue.
"Today we had no idea how it was going to go today, I’m sorry for whatever happened to Sebastian as obviously he was very quick in practice," said Hamilton.
"Somehow, we turned it around, the engineers did such a great job yesterday, the car felt great for both Valtteri and I, so it’s real surprise to be up here with these guys but I’m really grateful."
With Vettel starting at the back of the pack, the Malaysian Grand Prix serves as a unique opportunity for Hamilton to extend his lead in the Drivers' Championship which currently stands at 28 points with six races remaining.
With Ferrari and Red Bull Racing also showing strong pace in Malaysia, Hamilton is predicting a race that will be far from straightforward on Sunday: "Obviously we’re going to have a tough battle with these guys," he said.
"Red Bull in particular had great long run pace yesterday, and today I think, I’m hoping that our car has moved in the right direction for also the race run but we’ll see tomorrow.
"It's a long run down to Turn 1 so lots can happen," he added.
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