Lewis Hamilton says he and Ferrari will need to be very careful around Max Verstappen to have any chance of beating his old Formula One rival to victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix. The race, held at Sepang in Malaysia on Sunday, will start with Verstappen on pole – his first qualifying success of the year – and Hamilton alongside him on the front row.
Front row start at Sepang
The order mirrors the last time F1 raced at Sepang in 2017, when Verstappen, then 20, took the second victory of his career ahead of Hamilton, who went on to win the world championship that season – the fourth of his eventual seven titles.
On Saturday, Hamilton was delighted with his pace and the job his Ferrari team did to get him onto the front row, putting him in a position from which he hopes to fight for at least a podium. A victory might also be possible, but he knows that to get the better of the Red Bull starting ahead, he will need to be very particular in his approach to the race.
Hamilton's race plan
Hamilton said: "The last race, we were not fast in the race so I don't know, pace wise, how it will be. What I do know is we do carry this deficit of straight-line speed. I think we're slightly quicker through corners, particularly low-speed corners where we're a little bit quicker than, say, the Red Bulls. But then on the straights we lose a lot."
"What that means then for the race, on a track like this where degradation is high because the tyres are so hot all the time, we have to push more through corners to try to make up for the losses on the straights. That's what we need to be careful when doing tomorrow, to try not to degrade the tyres more when trying to keep up with them."
"I think we just have to run our own race, whatever that be pace wise, and try not to over-push to hold on. I think he's got the pace, generally, to pull away. But if that's different at the start of the race, if we're able to hold on and to fight, that'll be awesome as well. All we can do is our best."
Qualifying performance
Whatever happens on Sunday, it will at least go down as one of the more memorable Saturdays Hamilton has enjoyed for quite some time. He said of his qualifying performance: "People watching, maybe they don't know, but it's such fine margins and it's like balancing a knife on its head, which is pretty much impossible."
"Finding that balance with everything, with the power unit and with the aero platform that we have, the mechanical balance, brake balance and all of these things that we have, and then the team getting you out on track and in the right position, with the right tyre temperatures. There are so many elements that have to come together."
"But that was one of my most enjoyable laps of the year. It was probably my best lap of the year. I wasn't expecting to be on the front row. It's so hot for everyone working in the garage here, but the mechanics and engineers did a really good job, so I'm thankful to them."
