Lewis takes pole position for the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team in Imola

Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team

April 17, 2021

* Lewis achieved his 99th pole position in Formula 1 with a time of 1: 14.411

* Valtteri qualified eighth after a difficult third quarter

* Both drivers start the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix 2021 with the medium compound tire

Lewis Hamilton
Today was of course great. I definitely didn’t expect us to be ahead of the two Red Bulls. I think they were so quick this weekend. There were times when they were six tenths ahead. We didn’t really know where they would be, but the car felt a lot better already at the start of this weekend. So you know, insane respect to the team for the hard work really narrowing the window.

This route consists entirely of medium and high speed corners. I think that’s why we closed the gap. Temperatures are much lower which brought us closer to the Red Bulls. But they are so strong – it will take absolutely perfect laps to stay ahead of them if we have a chance of victory tomorrow.

Valtteri Bottas
Today was a bit confusing and I still don’t understand the third quarter performance. I had oversteer on the first run of the third quarter and the rear wasn’t that good on the second run. Not what I was aiming for today, especially with the feeling I had at the beginning of qualifying.

On the first run in the third quarter, I went into turn two and had a very sudden crack from the rear and I lost a lot of time. Same as in run two, I couldn’t trust the stern. I didn’t feel that in Q1 or Q2, so it’s hard to understand – we need to investigate. Overtaking here is difficult with a narrow lane but I’ll fight to give it my all tomorrow.

Toto Wolff
Pole was a surprise because we don’t have the fastest car at the moment. It was so close and Max would have been on pole without the mistake. But the loss compared to last year is just huge – we were six tenths ahead and now we’re two tenths behind. So we have to scratch our heads and just try to find the performance. It’s a faster car than in Bahrain. I think we have the car in a better compensation window, which is the main reason for the improvement. We had some problems with the driving behavior in Bahrain and we’re sorting that out – we’re getting there slowly.

It’s a huge advantage for them because not just two Red Bulls behind them, but Perez starts on softs so they can pursue two different strategies. Valtteri has to make his way through the soft runners he wants and can, but I think we’re a bit on the backfoot.

Andrew Shovlin
Congratulations to Lewis on his 99th pole position. He certainly had to work hard for this one but drove through the session really well. It wasn’t an easy day in any way. We struggled getting enough temperature for a single lap and if you start with the tires on the cold side the grip just isn’t there and you spend most of the lap sliding around. We need to analyze a little to understand Valtteri’s problem. He looked very strong in the first quarter but set his best time on lap three and couldn’t repeat that time for the rest of the session. We expect another close fight tomorrow, we at least have both cars on the middle tire which should give us flexibility in stop laps and hopefully we have a car that is fast enough to fight for victory.