McLaren-Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton maintains his mid-season superiority in the 2008 F1 World Championship, by seeing off all comers with a committed effort to seize pole position for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.
Silverstone star Lewis Hamilton has taken pole position for this weekend’s German Grand Prix, as Formula 1 world championship rival Kimi Raikkonen found himself all out-of-sorts at Hockenheim - and down on the third row of the grid.
Both McLaren-Mercedes’ had looked extremely quick throughout free practice, with rivals Ferrari - and Kimi Raikkonen in particular - appearing to be on the back foot, whilst half of the 2008 field had incredibly never even competed around the Baden-Württemberg circuit in an F1 car prior to this weekend.
“That was cool, I’m feeling cool and all is good for us this weekend, but what really matters is the race on Sunday. Heikki (Kovalainen, his team-mate) and I are going to our best to make sure we get the result that counts.” Lewis said.
He currently shares the leadership of the drivers’ world championship with the Ferrari duo of defending champion Finn Kimi Raikkonen and Brazilian Felipe Massa.
“My final lap went very smoothly,” said Hamilton. “It felt great and I am so grateful to the team for the progress we have made with the car in the last few weeks.
“We have made some really significant steps and I am very confident, but we have to do the job. Everything seemed to go right for me today - but the wind was very strong and I felt it on blowing from the right and the left on the main straight.”
Massa said: “I am glad things are back to normal after my terrible, really bad weekend at Silverstone. I don’t know about the fuel loads but we are competitive again and that is most important.”
Kovalainen said: “I had a few incidents and it felt a bit like I was a rally-cross driver sometimes, but in the end it was a good job. I enjoyed it and the car was great - we really have moved forward in the last four or five weeks.”
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