China Qualifying, Ferrari chases Mercedes
The top-3 of qualifying in China offers a photograph that Toto Wolff will probably frame in his office. In fact, there are the past, present, and future of Mercedes, with Lewis Hamilton “accompanying” George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, the youngest poleman in F1 history.
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Hamilton himself wanted to compliment the person who took his place at Mercedes. In just over a year, Antonelli has earned the respect and affection of the two heavyweights of the Circus in terms of personality and success (Max Verstappen and Sir Lewis himself), and the Ferrari driver can’t wait to duel with him in the Shanghai GP.
Hamilton’s words
“Kimi is truly a fantastic guy, he’s still a teenager. Mercedes is the best environment for his growth. It’s a winning team and I’m very happy for him. He did a great job“, this was his comment to Sky Sport F1. “Tomorrow will certainly be a challenge, but I’m sure we’ll have fun, as happened in the Sprint. Let’s hope there isn’t so much wind tomorrow, our goal is to try to further reduce the gap from Mercedes“.
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According to Hamilton, today’s gaps (less than four tenths from pole) are not truthful. But in the race there will be room at least to bother the W17, considering the advantage at the start and the competitiveness with a heavy car: “George has always been the fastest, but he didn’t manage to put the lap together. He probably would have had three tenths more. Beyond that, we have grown, we have improved the car and the power delivery, but the road is still long. Today putting a lap together was difficult. Charles did a great lap, as did the Mercedes guys. I am very happy to be in P3 and I am very grateful to be here together with Russell and Kimi, who so far have been unbeatable. But the engineers have done a great job and we managed to get a bit closer to Mercedes. See if we can take another step forward“.
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