Lewis Hamilton described his Styrian Grand Prix pole lap was ‘close to perfect’ and compared it to his Silverstone 2008 performance, after finishing clear of the field in wet conditions.
Hamilton led all three parts of a rain-hit session at the Red Bull Ring on Saturday afternoon and pulled clear from nearest rival Max Verstappen during the closing stages.
Hamilton improved on his provisional benchmark to record a time that left him over 1.2s clear of Verstappen – larger than the gap which covered the remainder of the top 10 drivers.
“Honestly it was a fantastic lap, the last one,” said Hamilton.
“There’s the importance of manging your time out there, the battery pack, knowing when to use the few laps you have on the qualifying mode, creating the gap, not making a mistake when it counts.
“The lap before was good enough but still the last lap for me was really as close to perfect as I could get it in those conditions and considering it was raining more it makes me even happier.
“Knowing that I went a bit quicker, doing that time, it takes me back to times like Silverstone 2008, because when you’re really at one with the car and not fazed at all.
“You have to be very dynamic with your driving from corner to corner as the puddles are shifting about with the cars running ahead of you which is a massive challenge, I’m smiling under this mask, super happy.”
Hamilton added that conditions were “on the limit” in a session that was delayed by 45 minutes due to the intensity of the rain at the scheduled start time.
“Just as we came to qualifying it was drying up, or wasn’t raining for a while, then as we got in the car it started to rain again, so we had a bit of a pause,” he said.
“Once we got going it was fine for the first session, it got worse, I’m glad they allowed us to stay out, it was on the limit, but that’s racing, and I’m glad they didn’t take that away from us.
“Today was so special being out there, it’s so difficult, I don’t know how it comes across on the cameras but it is the hardest conditions that we ever drive in and just one small lapse of concentration and you’re off, can be big or small, more chance of it being a big one, I’m grateful for that.”
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