Lewis Hamilton finished Qualifying in P3 at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza. Meanwhile, Valtteri Bottas will start tomorrow’s Italian Grand Prix from P4 on the grid.
Lewis Hamilton
That was an exciting qualifying session! We’ve improved the car overnight and I’m really happy with where we were today. I’m really proud of my guys for pushing this hard – we’ve squeezed absolutely everything out of the car today. Going into the second run of Q3, I kind of knew that the Ferraris might just be able to pull out some extra bit of time, but I think second place might have been possible today. I lost maybe half a tenth in the last corner and that’s the difference between third and second.
We’ve got to fight hard tomorrow. The long run pace of the Ferraris looked quicker than ours, so it’s not going to be easy, that’s for sure. The start will hopefully create an opportunity for us. I’ve got to study hard tonight to figure out a way how I can get in front of at least one of the Ferraris on the first lap. It’s great that Valtteri is right behind me, so we can really apply the pressure on the red cars.
? Will this crazy @F1 2018 title battle take another twist tomorrow?
The two championship rivals start P2 and P3… but it’s Kimi on pole! #ItalianGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/EdYJpKmAHG
— Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) September 1, 2018
Valtteri Bottas
The entire day was pretty difficult for me. We made some set-up changes for FP3; the car was better in the corners afterwards, but we lost performance under braking and it just became very easy to lock up the wheels. Obviously, on this high-speed track you need to be able to trust your brakes; unfortunately, I was never really able to do that. Compared to FP3, the car felt a bit better in qualifying, but still not quite there.
I made a mistake going into Turn 1 on the first lap in Q3 and after that it was difficult to really get the corner right in the second run. But this was only qualifying – this weekend is not over, the race is tomorrow and we will try everything to put the Ferraris under pressure and challenge them. We’ll see what we can do strategy-wise and I think the first lap is going to be interesting as we might be able to get a bit of a tow-effect into Turn 1.
? The top three are covered by just 0.175s in a thrilling #ItalianGP Quali!
Let’s see a ? for that super lap from the Champ! pic.twitter.com/tiSGmHiYiE
— Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) September 1, 2018
