Hamilton Cautious Ahead of Turkey at BetLM

Hamilton Cautious Ahead of Turkey

By Sarah Holt
BBC Sport at Istan­bul Park

McLaren’s Lewis Hamil­ton has played down his chances of a sec­ond suc­ces­sive win ahead of the Turk­ish Grand Prix.

The 2008 world cham­pion beat Red Bull’s Sebas­t­ian Vet­tel and Mark Web­ber into sec­ond and third in China but is not pre­dict­ing a repeat.

“I don’t like to expect too much because if it doesn’t work out it’s not a big come down,” he said.

“Even though we won the last race, we are still slightly behind the Red Bulls in terms of pure pace.”

With a three-week break between Hamilton’s win in Shang­hai and the resump­tion of hos­til­i­ties in Istan­bul this week­end, McLaren are set to incor­po­rate “a num­ber of small mod­i­fi­ca­tions” into their set-up.

Hamil­ton believes the gap between his MP4-26 and the dom­i­nant Red Bulls was “a good half a sec­ond” before the teams trav­elled back to Europe and admits the changes may not entirely elim­i­nate his rivals’ advantage.

“I hope we can close the gap but you never know who might have closed the gap more,” he said.

“Fin­gers crossed our upgrade is good enough. We’ll see tomorrow.

“We have to assume that what­ever we have brought they have the same or similar.

“You have to be cau­tious and to look out for Renault, Fer­rari and Mer­cedes – they have also made a step and may have moved closer or past us.”

Despite the pos­si­bil­ity that he will strug­gle to match Red Bull’s pace once again, Hamil­ton can take solace from his dis­play in China.

The less durable Pirelli tyres intro­duced for this sea­son have placed more empha­sis on race tac­tics and McLaren’s deci­sion to stop three times rather than twice proved key in Hamilton’s win.

“We may not be the quick­est this week­end, which is pos­si­ble, but if we are then that will be fan­tas­tic,” he added.

“In the last race we didn’t win because we had the fastest car, we won because we out-did them in strategy.”

Vet­tel lost his lead to Hamil­ton in China just four laps from the end as Hamil­ton took advan­tage of a fresh set of tyres.

And the Ger­man says there are lessons to learn from the last race which ended his win­ning streak of four races.

“McLaren didn’t win because they were lucky – they did a bet­ter job than we did,” said Vet­tel, 23.

“I don’t think our deci­sions were down to luck and nor were their’s. It’s impor­tant to learn from those things and make sure you don’t make the same mis­take twice.

“I wouldn’t say [los­ing] has been a wake-up call. Peo­ple were ask­ing at race two about being dom­i­nant and maybe it is a les­son for peo­ple ask­ing those ques­tions say­ing ‘it is total dominance’.

“I don’t like being beaten but nobody is unbeatable.”

Last year at the Istan­bul Park cir­cuit, McLaren ben­e­fit­ted from an extra­or­di­nary error from Red Bull as a clash between team-mates Web­ber and Vet­tel gifted Hamil­ton his first vic­tory of the season.

Vet­tel added with a touch of humour that he would not be reflect­ing on the crash that ended his race 12 months previously.

“What are my mem­o­ries [of last year]?” the world cham­pion said. “Blank.

“There is noth­ing we can change. We had our dis­cus­sions last year and we learned from it.

Web­ber and Vet­tel filled the remain­der of the podium in Shanghai

“Com­ing back here it doesn’t really change any­thing. In the end I always try to learn some­thing even when from the out­side every­thing looks smooth.”

Web­ber wowed F1 audi­ences in China as he deliv­ered a dra­matic drive from 18th on the grid to take his first podium of 2011 in third.

Con­tin­u­ing prob­lems with Red Bull’s unre­li­able energy-boost Kers device and a deci­sion to run on the hard tyres hurt the Aus­tralian in qualifying.

But Web­ber is refus­ing to use his efforts last time out as a boost and says he would pre­fer a more straight­for­ward race week­end in Turkey, where he took pole last year.

“Peo­ple were say­ing it was just the result I needed which was fine, but I just need a smooth week­end,” Web­ber com­mented. “I haven’t really had one yet.

“We need to have three or four races on the bounce when we have a smooth Sat­ur­day and Sun­day and that is when I can be happy that I have got the most out of what I have.

“I’m look­ing for­ward to hav­ing a race here. We’ve had a few good grands prix here.”

Asked whether Red Bull had solved their issues with Kers, Web­ber said: “The guys have worked incred­i­bly hard.

“We don’t have the lux­ury of test­ing so we’ll learn as much as we can. We still have some atten­tion to focus on it.”

Related Posts:

• Dom­i­nant Vet­tel Takes Turkey Pole
• Alonso Leads Hamil­ton in Practice
• Hamil­ton Chal­lenges Red Bull Pace
• Hamil­ton Angered by Toro Rosso
• Hamil­ton Eyes Monaco Improvement

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